The Trump administration is set to announce today what it calls a “historic” breakthrough on autism. The claim? That Tylenol, one of the most widely used over-the-counter pain relievers in the world, may cause autism when taken during pregnancy.
The announcement will be made by President Donald Trump alongside his Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s most famous vaccine conspiracy theorist turned federal health chief.
There’s just one problem: it is not true.
A Political Spectacle Masquerading as Science
Trump previewed the announcement at conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, boasting that he and Kennedy had “found an answer to autism” — an illness he described as if it were a solvable puzzle, not a complex neurodevelopmental condition NBC News. Multiple outlets now report the administration will formally tell pregnant people to avoid Tylenol unless absolutely necessary, while touting a decades-old chemotherapy drug, leucovorin, as a supposed autism treatment.
For Kennedy, this is the culmination of a promise he made earlier this year: to “solve” autism’s rise by September. He has long claimed that “environmental toxins” — code for vaccines, pesticides, and now household medicines — are responsible. Scientific authorities, from the CDC to the National Institutes of Health, do not agree.
What the Science Actually Says
The evidence tying acetaminophen (Tylenol’s active ingredient) to autism is weak, conflicting, and in most rigorous studies, nonexistent. A massive 2024 Swedish study of two million children found no link between prenatal Tylenol use and autism, ADHD or other disorders. FactCheck.org points out that when researchers account for genetics — such as comparing siblings within families — any statistical association vanishes. Maternal health conditions like fever and migraine (reasons a parent might take Tylenol) may themselves carry autism risks, making the drug a confounding variable, not a cause.
Leading medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say acetaminophen remains the recommended safe option for pain and fever during pregnancy. Ibuprofen and similar NSAIDs, by contrast, are known to cause actual fetal harm. The far more dangerous outcome, experts caution, is that pregnant patients might now avoid treating fevers — which unequivocally increase miscarriage and birth defect risk.
From Vaccines to Tylenol: The Next Frontier of Pseudoscience
This isn’t Kennedy’s first flirtation with scientific distortion. For decades, he built his career falsely claiming that childhood vaccines cause autism — a theory debunked so thoroughly it survives only in Facebook feeds and anti-vax Telegram groups. What’s happening now is not just a scientific error. It’s an attempt to launder that old narrative into official government policy, dressed in new clothes.
Notice the arc: vaccines were once the villain. Now Tylenol, a drug taken by more than half of pregnant Americans, is the stand-in. Tomorrow it may be folate deficiency, as Kennedy is also expected to push, despite folic acid already being a recommended supplement with no proven autism prevention link. Each pivot is less about evidence than about finding a new hook to keep a debunked worldview politically alive.
Why This Matters Globally
Science denial in one country doesn’t stay contained. If America’s president and health secretary proclaim Tylenol unsafe, pregnant people worldwide will hear it. The market already reacted — shares in Kenvue, Tylenol’s parent company, dropped over 14% after The Wall Street Journal’s reporting. Public trust in medication — fragile after the COVID-era misinformation wars — will fracture further.
And there’s democracy’s stake. Public health has always relied on trust in institutions. This administration is exploiting that trust to amplify conspiratorial anti-science politics under the banner of “Make America Healthy Again.” When truth becomes negotiable — when the federal government floats a falsehood as sweeping as “Tylenol causes autism” — the ripple effects go far beyond autism research. They corrode the very idea that facts can guide policy.
The Bigger Picture
Autism is not a mystery in need of a miracle cure. It is a spectrum condition shaped by genetics, developmental differences, and possibly subtle environmental factors — none of which have ever pointed to pain relievers as the root cause. Trump’s framing, that an “answer to autism” exists to be unveiled in a single White House briefing, is not just scientifically inaccurate; it’s profoundly insulting to autistic people and their families.
What’s unfolding now is not science, but spectacle. And it risks real harm: to pregnant people frightened away from safe medication, to autistic communities shoved into political theater, and to a democracy increasingly comfortable making public health policy on the back of debunked conspiracy theories.