Last weekend, whilst attending the memorial of Charlie Kirk, President Trump teased the crowd with an announcement. “I think we found an answer to autism,” he said, adding that it would be “one of the most important things that we will do”. The crowd went wild.
In the White House yesterday Trump’s “big announcement” delivered no greater scientific rigour than the off-the-cuff remarks over the weekend. But the baseless claim that taking Tylenol (sold as paracetamol in the UK) during pregnancy is linked to autism in newborns has just grown legs.
Let’s be clear: research across the world is far from conclusive on any link between paracetamol during pregnancy and autism. A 2024 study in Sweden of nearly 2.5m children found that use of acetaminophen, the generic name for the compound used in Tylenol and paracetamol, during pregnancy “was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analyses”. It could also be argued that with over 50 per cent of pregnant women using paracetamol worldwide the prevalence of autism should be far greater, were the painkiller indeed a cause.
In a joint statement on Monday, the leading UK autism groups Ambitious About Autism, Autism Alliance, Autistica and the National Autistic Society declared the “evidence” Kennedy and Trump are citing has emerged from “poorly conducted studies” and that “these claims are not only stigmatising, but they are a distraction and act as an impediment to progress”. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidelines are also clear that “paracetamol is the first choice of painkiller if you’re pregnant”.
Yet as an autistic person living in an autistic family and with a huge community around me, I know that many of us will be feeling that this is just the latest round of a fight where we are already on the ropes.
Many of us have lived through the autism and MMR years, when Dr Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 study reported MMR vaccines were responsible for autism. The paper was debunked and withdrawn, but the seed had already been sown, and with profound consequences.
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In 1998 there were 56 confirmed cases of measles in the UK; in 2024 there were 2,911 laboratory confirmed measles cases in England alone. Alder Hey Children’s Hospital reported the death of a child in July this year, leading the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to urge parents to have their children vaccinated. This year almost one in five children have not received their pre-school booster jab. I believe this links back to Wakefield’s debunked paper.
For parents of children with autism, this Tylenol theory feels like yet another stick to beat us with, from the entirely discredited Refrigerator Mothers narrative of the 1940s – which theorised that children could develop autism because of a lack of love from their parents – to the present day, we always seem to be in the line of fire. Back then it was our cold attitude toward our babies that apparently caused autism; now it’s the pain medication we take during pregnancy.
Many of us are desperately trying to get help for our children within a failing education system, firefighting daily. And yet even last week here in the UK, with problems in the SEND system high on the political agenda, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice said the SEND system was “out of control” and was being “hijacked by parents who are abusing the system,” a casual comment with absolutely no evidence, which only fuels the fire of hostility toward the “other”.Hyperbolic and factually unsupported terminology doesn’t help, with health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr stating in April that the US is in the grip of an “autism epidemic”. Before we know it, it has become received truth.
The National Autistic Society’s website clearly states: “Autism is not a disease or an epidemic.” Autistic is something we are, not something we have contracted. My children are fabulously autistic; autism is their neurotype. Rising figures in diagnosis are as a result of access to, and better standards of assessments.
Beyond the obvious arguments to the US statement, there are many historical figures who some believe may have shown autistic traits, from Beethoven to Charles Darwin, and from Jane Austen to van Gogh – none of whom would have ingested a sliver of paracetamol.
Whatever the next bright idea, the next damning opinion, the next theory projected onto us is, one thing is for sure: autistic people have always been here, and we’re here to stay.
Carrie Grant is an author, vocal coach, TV presenter and campaigner
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