Tylenol use by pregnant girls in ERs dropped after Trump autism warning : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1024x682+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fda%2F85%2Fa208fd1644bc90ce99a9b01211bd%2Fgettyimages-2236338199.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1024x682+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fda%2F85%2Fa208fd1644bc90ce99a9b01211bd%2Fgettyimages-2236338199.jpg" class="img" alt="President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned pregnant women in September 2025 to avoid acetaminophen during pregnancy because of an autism risk. A causal link is unproven, scientists say." fetchpriority="high"/> President Trump urged pregnant girls to keep away from taking Tylenol in a White Home announcement in September 2025. Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures disguise caption

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Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures President Trump advised pregnant girls in September 2025 to keep away from Tylenol as a result of taking it will enhance their infants' threat of autism: "Taking Tylenol is just not good — I will say it: It isn't good."

Medical doctors and scientists shortly mentioned the information did not help the president's declare, however emergency room orders for Tylenol, or acetaminophen, for pregnant sufferers went down 10% within the months that adopted, in keeping with a brand new examine in The Lancet. There was no change within the acetaminophen orders for comparable girls who weren't pregnant.

"It occurred in a single day," says Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency doctor at Brigham and Girls's Hospital in Boston who led the examine. The president's phrases "had an instantaneous impression on how a lot Tylenol or acetaminophen was being ordered in emergency departments."

It isn't clear from the examine whether or not sufferers declined to take Tylenol or medical doctors prescribed it much less. Faust says it is in all probability some mixture of the 2.

"That is 1000's of ladies not getting ache management or not getting fever discount once they want it, when they need it, once they would profit from it," Faust says.

The examine was restricted to emergency division visits and did not account for ladies contemplating Tylenol at residence. The info got here from digital well being information from greater than 1,600 hospitals.

Dr. Caleb Alexander, an epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Faculty of Public Well being, says the response to Trump's White Home announcement did not shock him.

"Phrases matter," he says. "And once they come from somebody with as huge an viewers because the president of the US, they will change prescriber and affected person habits."

Nonetheless, he says it is reassuring that the examine discovered Tylenol use was returning to regular by December. He says it normally takes greater than a single occasion to alter prescribing patterns long run.

Though the president and his well being workforce spoke within the fall about updating Tylenol's label, that hasn't occurred. Tylenol consumption "improved" in December, Kenvue, the corporate that makes Tylenol, advised buyers final month.

"We stand with science and proceed to consider that there isn't a credible information that exhibits a confirmed hyperlink between taking acetaminophen and autism," says Kenvue spokesperson Melissa Witt.

The examine in The Lancet examine additionally checked out prescriptions for leucovorin, a B vitamin, which rose sharply after the president instructed it as an autism remedy. And people had not fallen again by the tip of the examine interval in early December.