Carol Vorderman hit back at Trump’s comments about autism during Labour’s Party conference in Liverpool
Carol Vorderman and her son Cameron King(Image: Instagram/Carol Vorderman)
Carol Vorderman has spoken out against recent comments by Donald Trump linking autism to the use of paracetamol during pregnancy, calling his remarks “wicked” and highlighting the emotional toll such narratives place on mothers of children with special educational needs.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Carol criticised the former US president’s remarks, which suggested a “meteoric rise” in autism was connected to the use of Tylenol, the US brand name for paracetamol, during pregnancy.
She said: “Donald Trump is talking about paracetamol or Tylenol, as they call it in America, which is a trade name and you know [he is] trying to make women feel guilty about that.
“You know, I’ve got an SEN (special educational needs) child.
“So as you know, I know that guilt you feel for that because you love nothing more and [want] to protect this beautiful baby that you’ve got.
Carole Cadwalladr and Carol Vorderman at Labour conference(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
“And as they grow up, you know, they’re bullied and all of those different things you go through.
“And I’ve been through all that as a mum and it was wicked to do so.”
She contrasted Trump’s unfounded claims with the pregnancy-associated homicide rates in the United States.
Carol said: “But I thought, ‘Well, hang on,’ you know, ‘what about the deaths of pregnant women in America?’
“Do you know what the cause of most deaths is, a single cause of most deaths of pregnant and postpartum women? Have a guess?
“Murder. It’s femicide and 81% of those murders are with guns and that’s a bigger cause of death for these women than any of the obstetric things. But nobody talks about that.”
Carol was referencing a 2020 report from the National Library of Medicine on pregnancy-associated homicide in the United States.
The report identified 189 such homicides in the 2020 mortality file.
Of those cases, 81% involved firearms, 55% occurred in the home, and over half of the victims were pregnant at the time of death, with the remainder occurring up to one year postpartum.