A majority of Americans do not trust the Trump administration’s recent claim, disputed by numerous experts as unproven, that taking Tylenol during pregnancy is driving a spike in childhood autism rates.
Just four percent of respondents told a KFF poll they believed the claim was definitely true, while 30 percent said it was probably false and 35 percent said it was definitely false.
Support became more polarized when partisanship was taken into account. Among Democrats, 59 percent thought the administration’s claims were definitely false, compared to just 12 percent of Republicans who had serious doubts.
The split also tracked to larger trust in the Trump administration and its controversial health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Among Republicans, 67 percent trusted Kennedy to provide reliable vaccine information, compared with 13 percent of Democrats.
Mainstream medical associations and the maker of Tylenol insist that taking the medicine during pregnancy is both safe and not proven to cause autism.
Scientific evidence regarding the relationship between the medicine and the neurological condition is mixed and often contradictory. Studies have not proven a definitive causal link between the acetaminophen-based pill and autism.
Experts generally attribute rising autism diagnoses to increased awareness about the spectrum and expanding criteria for what constitutes autism.
As part of last month’s White House announcement about Tylenol and autism, where the president repeated numerous false claims about autism and vaccines, federal health officials quietly acknowledged the lack of clear evidence behind the president and Kennedy’s claims, noting in press releases the “conflicting literature” about the question, in which “a causal relationship has not been established.”
Acetaminophen is one of the only pain and fever relievers considered safe during pregnancy, and refraining from taking it can put babies at risk, according to maternal health experts.
Despite the considerable doubt surrounding the president’s autism agenda, both within the public and the medical community, Trump and Kennedy have continued to stand firm in their insistence Tylenol is putting newborns at risk.
“There’s something going on, and we have to address it,” Trump said at a Thursday cabinet meeting, where he repeated a false claim that there is no autism within the Amish community because they use less modern medicine. “And so I’m addressing it the best I can as a non-doctor, but I’m a man of common sense.”
During the meeting, Kennedy said he recently watched a TikTok video in which a pregnant Columbia University medical school professor was “gobbling Tylenol” to spite Trump.
“The level of Trump derangement syndrome has now left the political landscape and is now almost a pathology,” the health secretary said, accusing the mother of “overwhelming millions of years of maternal instincts to put her baby at risk” by being “irresponsible” and taking Tylenol.
