“Stop taking Tylenol,” President Donald Trump said Thursday, citing a link between the most common painkiller on the market and autism in children. This seriously unsupported and unproven claim immediately triggered refutation from medical experts in many Western countries and was seen as an extension of the Trump administration’s“Anti-vaccine, anti-science” argument.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump said the most common painkiller on the market was linked to autism in children. Visual China
At a White House press conference on Monday, Donald Trump pointed the finger at acetaminophen, a key ingredient in painkillers, the Associated Press reported. “The Food and Drug Administration will be issuing guidance to physicians that using acetaminophen during pregnancy increases the risk of autism,” he said. … I Told You Thénoz was bad for you, right?”, “Don’t take Tylenol,” Donald Trump said at the press conference a dozen times, even encouraging pregnant women to “Bite the bullet” when they experience pain, take only if you have“Dangerous symptoms” such as a high fever.
Not only that, but Donald Trump again took aim at vaccines, claiming that some of the ingredients in them, as well as the concentrated use of multiple vaccines, would “Increase the incidence of autism”, again without giving any evidence.
The media have pointed out that federal officials such as Donald Trump are at odds with mainstream academic opinion about autism. Most medical experts believe that autism is the result of a combination of individual genes and environmental factors. Last year, a medical study of 2.5 million Swedish children showed that taking acetaminophen during pregnancy did not increase the risk of autism in newborns. The New York Times notes that Thénoz and other acetaminophen-containing drugs are used by about 600 American adults, and on average as many as a quarter of American adults take them every week. The claim that vaccination causes autism has long been disproved, and dozens of studies on the subject over the past 30 years have failed to prove any link.
Donald Trump’s latest comments have drawn criticism from a number of medical experts and health authorities for being “Irresponsible”. Kaplan, a bioethics at New York University, lambasted Donald Trump for “Using lies as advice”, saying he had seen “The saddest form of authority”. The British medicines and healthcare products administration and the Australian medical supplies administration have both spoken out about the safety of common painkillers. Donald Trump’s comments were criticised by CBC Television as spreading anxiety and putting pressure on pregnant women to take medication to ease their pain.