(Photo courtesy of Mark Schiefelbein) “Trump with RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz”
Makayla Mahoney
Connector Staff
On Monday, September 22nd, President Donald Trump took to the White House press podium to announce the Food and Drug Administration’s findings on an association between acetaminophen and autism.
He warned that the FDA would now be notifying health officials to caution women against taking Tylenol while pregnant, as acetaminophen is an active ingredient in the pain reliever. His administration also announced the beginning of an approval process for leucovorin, a drug they stated would treat autism, however no studies have shown a benefit to its use.
Tylenol is the most commonly used pain reliever during pregnancy as it is the safest for women to use. According to NBC, 40-65% of pregnant women take Tylenol at some point during their pregnancy. According to Cleveland Clinic, fevers pose a greater risk to both the mother and fetus than the Tylenol used to treat them. While President Trump cited scientific research to support a causal link between acetaminophen and autism, experts say these studies have been inconclusive.
In the press conference on Monday, President Trump refers to autism as a “horrible, horrible crisis” and stated that women shouldn’t take Tylenol at all during their pregnancy. However, he also noted that it should be discussed with their doctors or taken when they can’t “tough it out”.
The President followed up these claims with others stating that the prevalence of autism has increased 400% since the year 2000 and that it virtually does not exist in Amish communities. He continued on to discuss childhood vaccinations and described them as a “disgrace” and suggests they be done in smaller doses up to five times.
Alongside President Trump was the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. who was appointed Secretary of HHS in January of this year and built his position on the goal of determining the cause of autism. His appointment as Secretary sowed great doubt in many U.S. Senators as they challenged his past stances on vaccines and autism during his confirmation hearing earlier this year. On Fox News in 2023, RFK Jr. was quoted saying, “I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.”
While the prevalence of autism in the U.S. has increased over the years, medical experts attribute this to the advancements in diagnostic testing and a greater awareness of the autism spectrum. Earlier studies that have tried to link autism to vaccinations have often been debunked over the years as well. Research on the causes of autism has been ongoing for decades, often focusing on a genetic link that finds multiple genes as well as several environmental factors that impact the development of a fetus’s brain (PBS, 2025).
Junior nursing student at UMass Lowell, Maddie Koenig, shared her take on the announcement, recommending that pregnant women should “do their own research on the topic because a lot of people in our government do not have degrees in medicine… there are so many studies proving that Tylenol is safe for pregnancy and people should form their own beliefs before believing something they see online or in the news and this goes for any topic, not just Tylenol and pregnancy.”
She continued, sharing that nursing students at UMass Lowell “learn what sources we can trust, how to find good sources, and how to do our own research, as we have a lot of experience with patients so we can see what actually works and what’s safe and what’s not safe… I also think a lot of us trust that the medical professionals are teaching us the right information and we’ve seen it in so many studies and so many pregnancies that [Tylenol] doesn’t hurt the fetus.”
