On Monday, Sept. 22, President Donald Trump issued a press release backed by the United States Department of Health, claiming that tylenol usage during pregnancy increases risk of the offspring acquiring autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Tylenol, also known as its chemical name acetaminophen in the U.S. and paracetamol in Europe, is known as a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug. This means that tylenol acts in a way that blocks inflammatory pathways during stress or infection in the body, ultimately resulting in pain and fever relief. Given its ease of access and non-consequential nature, Tylenol is the recommended pain-reliever for pregnant women.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), autism, or autism spectrum disorders (ASD), can be defined as conditions with characteristics such as impaired social interaction and communication and abnormal activity and behavioural patterns.
The WHO also says that though the specific causes of autism are not necessarily clear, it is considered that autism can be acquired from parent to offspring.
It can also be acquired in a fetus whose mother ingests toxic chemicals such as pollutants or heavy metals, or high-strength drugs.
This is because anything the mother ingests can cross into the placenta, which then can be ingested by the fetus. Adverse health conditions of the mother, such as high fever during pregnancy, can also have a neurological effect on the child.
In response to Trump, WHO issued statements from multiple individuals from health agencies around the world. In an interview with NBC News, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), stated that “a large amount of data from pregnant women who used paracetamol during pregnancy indicates no risk of malformations on the developing fetus or on newborns.”
The Ministry of Health of New Zealand stated that paracetamol is one of the safest drugs to take during pregnancy. The German Health Ministry and Scott White, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Women’s Health Committee chair, both refuted Trump’s claim on behalf of the mother.
White stated, “I’m really worried about the messaging that says pregnant women should just tough it out, that pregnant women should be denied access to pain relief, which is a fundamental human right. It’s every woman’s right.”
Trump also went on to claim that certain additives in vaccines have the capacity to cause autism, which WHO also firmly argued against.
In response to this claim, Tarik Jašarević, a spokesperson of WHO, stated that “We know that vaccines do not cause autism. Vaccines, as I said, save countless lives. So, this is something that science has proven, and these things should not be really questioned.”
Vaccines have been developed over years of extensive research and have been shown to save lives. The safety of vaccines are also taken seriously by the researchers who develop and manufacture them. As of the writing of this article, there are studies that have researched and are currently researching correlation between autism and usage of tylenol during pregnancy, but there is not yet plausible evidence that there is a direct cause between the two.