Tylenol Claims Are a Microcosm of Trump and RFK's Wider Attack on Public Health

"A closer look at the recent debacle in which the Trump administration baselessly claimed that autism is caused by taking acetaminophen during pregnancy offers a microcosm through which to understand the Trump administration's larger public health agenda - a project fundamentally shaped by a patriarchal view of health and pregnancy, disregard for individuals' bodily autonomy, the pathologization of neurodiversity, traditional gender roles, the moralization of illness and disability, and distrust of science and medicine."

"After the Trump administration made its ungrounded claim about Tylenol use by pregnant people causing autism in children, many medical and disability organizations based in the United States and abroad issued statements contradicting the claim and described the comments as a misrepresentation of the scientific evidence related to pregnancy and acetaminophen, the drug in Tylenol and other common over-the-counter medications."

"As evidenced by Trump and RFK's sloppy and unsupported claims about Tylenol and autism, the MAHA movement is also fully willing to promote dangerous misinformation in order to lay more groundwork for the regime's authoritarian health agenda. Moreover, the Trump administration's rhetoric on Tylenol and autism undermines science and stigmatizes autistic people. Days after the acetaminophen announcement, the FDA also announced a review of medication abortion drugs,"

Trump and RFK's MAHA commission advanced an unsupported claim linking prenatal acetaminophen use to autism, promoting misinformation and stigmatizing autistic people. The claim aligns with a public-health approach shaped by patriarchal control of pregnancy, disregard for bodily autonomy, pathologization of neurodiversity, reinforcement of traditional gender roles, moralization of illness and disability, and distrust of science. The administration paired the acetaminophen claim with a review of medication abortion drugs and relied on misrepresented or low-quality studies for political effect. Numerous medical and disability organizations in the U.S. and abroad refuted the acetaminophen–autism assertion as a misrepresentation of the evidence.

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