London (CNN) — Backlash has been swift and forceful overseas following U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments blaming – without solid evidence – acetaminophen and certain vaccines for autism in children.
“Don’t pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine. In fact, don’t take even take my word for it, as a politician – listen to British doctors, British scientists,” UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said in a televised interview. “I trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this.”
It comes after Trump announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will notify doctors that the use of Tylenol – the brand name for acetaminophen, known in most countries as paracetamol – during pregnancy can be associated with a “very increased risk of autism.” Despite decades of evidence that it is safe, Trump suggested that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy “if you can’t tough it out.”
British charity the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which provides antenatal education for parents, said it had seen a “huge increase” in people searching for information about paracetamol and pregnancy since Monday.
The medicine regulatory agencies of the European Union and the United Kingdom and Health Canada also quickly issued statements Tuesday confirming that taking paracetamol during pregnancy remains safe.
“Paracetamol remains an important option to treat pain or fever in pregnant women,” Steffen Thirstrup, chief medical officer of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said in a statement. “Our advice is based on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children.”
Experts warn that an untreated fever can be dangerous for both the fetus and the pregnant person. Risks include miscarriage, birth defects and high blood pressure. Experts also say there are multiple causes of autism, and the science on a connection between autism and Tylenol is not settled.
A peer-reviewed analysis published in BioMed Central in August looked at 46 studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders. Overall, the analysis concluded that there was “strong evidence of an association” between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism, but the authors were careful to say that the research could not show that acetaminophen caused autism. The authors recommended judicious acetaminophen use, under medical guidance.
Meanwhile, a 2024 peer-reviewed Swedish study published in the medical journal JAMA found no link between acetaminophen taken in pregnancy and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
The EMA statement said that in 2019, the agency “reviewed available studies that investigated the neurodevelopment of children exposed to paracetamol in utero and found that the results were inconclusive and that no link with neurodevelopmental disorders could be established.”
Speaking on Britain’s ITV News, Streeting said: “I’ve just got to be really clear about this: There is no evidence to link the use of paracetamol by pregnant women to autism in their children. None.” He encouraged the British public to “follow the science,” especially at a time when “you’ve got kids in this country now dying of measles, whooping cough, kids not taking the RSV vaccine, when those respiratory diseases can be life-threatening in our children.”
The vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) has long been a target of misinformation and alarm, including by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., following discredited research linking it to autism by a British doctor who has since been barred from practicing medicine. Kennedy publicly urged people to get the measles vaccine amid this year’s outbreak that led to three deaths and nearly 200 hospitalizations across the US, but also touted unconventional therapies.
Acetaminophen, or paracetamol, is considered the only safe over-the-counter option for pain or fever during pregnancy. Other common pain relief options like ibuprofen or regular-dose aspirin can increase the risk of serious pregnancy complications, according to experts.
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said: “Paracetamol remains the recommended pain relief option for pregnant women when used as directed. Pregnant women should continue to follow existing NHS (National Health Service) guidance and speak to their healthcare professional if they have questions about any medication during pregnancy.”
Katherine Walker, the service development manager at Britain’s NCT, told CNN that parents were reaching out to the charity to get some clarity on paracetamol and pregnancy.
“There is a huge amount of concern from parents who are pregnant now, but also who’ve already had babies and children who are reflecting on their experiences in pregnancy,” even though medicines agencies have rigorously tested paracetamol and found no evidence that it causes autism, Walker said.
“We’re seeing a lot of misinformation, particularly on places like TikTok, so parents need to learn where the best place is to go to get that evidence-based information,” Walker added, pointing parents toward the free resources on the NCT website, as well as the UK’s National Health Service website and another government service called ‘Best Use of Medicines in Pregnancy.’
“I’m actually in clinic today, and I’ve had a couple of patients who’ve already asked me about it,” Dr. Lynn Murphy-Kaulbeck, president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, told CNN on Wednesday. “We’re trying to reassure women… acetaminophen in pregnancy should be used when indicated, based on science, based on studies.”
“We have to base our decisions on science, and I think that’s what we’re losing with the rhetoric that’s coming from the United States,” Murphy-Kaulbeck added.
Vaccine misinformation
On Monday, Trump also advocated for breaking up childhood vaccinations and even pushing back the hepatitis B shot for newborns to age 12. It’s “too much liquid, too many different things are going into that baby,” Trump said, without citing scientific evidence.
As a public health strategy, providing hepatitis B shot to infants brought the infection in children to the brink of elimination in the United States.
And extensive research has shown that there’s no link between vaccines and autism.
“Extensive safety monitoring in the UK and internationally continues to show that the benefits of these vaccinations outweigh any risks. Hepatitis B vaccines used in the UK have a well-established safety profile and play a vital role in protecting infants from serious illness,” Alison Cave, chief safety officer at the MHRA, said in a statement.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement that vaccination campaigns, which have saved more than 150 million lives in the past 50 years, are being threatened by misinformation.
“Misinformation is increasingly driven from the top, with prominent influencers pushing thoroughly debunked myths, such as the disproven and false claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism,” said WHO’s immunization director, Kate O’Brien.
“Pseudoscience, false logic, and selective ‘evidence’ are weaponized in ways that sow confusion and doubt among well-meaning parents.”
O’Brien said the consequences of this misinformation were “real and tragic,” pointing to how the drop in coverage of the measles vaccine “is driving a significant rise in measles cases and deaths, including in wealthy countries like the US, Canada, the UK and other European countries.”
The International Confederation of Midwives told CNN in a statement that the comments from US officials “may understandably worry pregnant women and parents.” But the confederation reiterated that routine infant vaccination programs globally have “significantly improved health outcomes.”
“Vaccines use only a very small proportion of a child’s immune system, are well tolerated even when several are given together, and provide long-lasting immunity,” the midwives organization added. “Any decline in confidence caused by misinformation risks reduced vaccine uptake, which would leave mothers and babies vulnerable to preventable illness.”
CNN’s Jen Christensen, Brenda Goodman, Meg Tirrell, Robert North and Charlotte Reck contributed to this report.
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