White House says Trump wants ‘answers’ on autism increase as he is ready to announce Tylenol link: Updates – UK Times

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that 1 in 31 8-year-old children was identified with autism in the 16 communities the agency had studied.

That marks a roughly 10 to 20 percent increase every two years within the last 20 years.

There have also been widely successful public health programs, including more wellness visits and screenings with infants as well as more awareness of the condition among parents and physicians.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt would not say whether the administration is relying on new data about Tylenol use ahead of today’s announcement when faced with questions about whether Trump’s actions have the “potential to confuse pregnant women.”

“I think women for many years, in fact for decades, have been confused by the rapid increase in autism in this country,” he said, calling autism a “chronic disease epidemic plaguing” the country.

“They want answers,” she said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that Trump will be addressing the “childhood autism epidemic” in remarks later today, following reports that the president intends to link Tylenol use during pregnancy to autism.

She called today’s event a “powerful display” of how the administration is “championing gold-standard science.”

Major health groups including the Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, among others, have not found such evidence.

Maternal-fetal medicine experts have also argued that existing guidance already tells pregnant women to speak with their physicians and use Tylenol and other drugs sparingly.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is holding a briefing at 1 p.m. ET.

Trump reportedly views RFK Jr. and his passionate following among so-called Make American Healthy Again moms as a key asset in the 2026 midterms, betting that support for his health priorities will outweigh those alarmed by his efforts to scale back vaccine access.

RFK and Trump have long espoused the idea that an artificial external factor, such as vaccines or the environment, has played a role in the increase in autism diagnoses since the 1990s.

But autism researchers at many of the nation’s top universities have noted that the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal budget while pushing vaccine skepticism have led to the freezing of federal grants that researchers hoped to use to better understand the developmental disability, a condition that still carries stigma.

UK experts have condemned “fearmongering” in the United States following reports surrounding an upcoming announcement from the Trump administration linking Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism.

Researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recently determined that children may be more likely to develop neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and ADHD if exposed to acetaminophen during pregnancy.

But experts and the researchers who conducted the review — which has been swept up in RFK’s crusade — have cautioned that the study does not prove a causal link, and that use of the drug does not “cause” autism.

Another study published in Sweden last year which reviewed more than 2.5 million children “found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability.”

“IDK who may need to hear this, but middle school science taught us correlation ≠ causation,” wrote Trump’s former surgeon general Jerome Adams. “As we assess RFK’s expected announcement on autism [and] Tylenol today, remember: acetaminophen use during pregnancy may align with autism diagnoses, but that doesn’t prove cause.”

He added: “For a claim like Tylenol causing autism, we need a plausible biological mechanism and robust evidence. Illness during pregnancy, parental age, genetics, or environmental factors are all more likely culprits. Science demands we dig deeper before pointing fingers [and] scaring moms.”

The Trump administration’s interpretation of decades of data and research finding no link between autism and Tylenol use during pregnancy is reckless and anti-science, according to health experts who closely study autism.

Hosting an ”entire press conference just on Tylenol would be reckless in my opinion without additional info,” Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, Dean of Baylor College of Medicine’s National School of Tropical Medicine and a professor in the Departments of Molecular Virology & Microbiology and Pediatrics.

“Of course that’s what MAHA is: Reckless. Also not deep thinking in terms of science,” he wrote. “They tend to veer towards magical thinking like a child.”

Dr. Vin Gupta with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation called the announcement “another example of this admin cherry picking data from years ago, ignoring the best research, and then claiming they are white knights.”

RFK Jr. is “taking half truths or low quality data” and “committing precious resources in a faux attempt at transparency” to search for debunked answers to back up their spurious agenda, he told NBC.

Kennedy had previously similarly targeted fluoride and COVID-19 vaccines — and now appears to be doing so with Tylenol, Gupta said.

Autism can be linked to environmental risk factors, like exposure to air pollution, as well as maternal health, but Kenndy is “looking at poor data and making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Following news earlier this month that the Trump administration was preparing to announce a causal link between Tylenol and autism, major medical groups reinforced studies that have found use of acetaminophen during pregnancy remains a safe way to treat pain and fever.

Several studies have determined acetaminophen is a safe way to treat pain and fever when used in moderation.

“Pregnant patients should not be frightened away from the many benefits of acetaminophen, which is safe and one of the few options pregnant people have for pain relief,” according to Dr. Christopher Zahn, chief of clinical practice with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Salena Zanotti told Cleveland Clinic earlier this year that acetaminophen is considered the safest drug to take during pregnancy for fever and pain.

“When you’re pregnant, it’s riskier to have an untreated fever than it is to take acetaminophen,” Zanotti said.