Trump announces FDA will change Tylenol safety label, urges pregnant mothers to prevent autism risk in children

WASHINGTON — President Trump urged expecting mothers Monday to avoid taking Tylenol during their entire pregnancy, saying studies have shown that taking the common painkiller is associated with autism.

The only time pregnant women should take Tylenol, a common form of acetaminophen, is during a high-risk fever, Trump announced. The FDA will be updating the label on acetaminophen to relay the risk in pregnancy and will be sending out a letter to all doctors with the warning.

“With Tylenol, don’t take it! Don’t take it,” Trump told reporters from the Roosevelt Room of the White House. “And if you can’t live, if your fever is so bad, you have to take one, because there’s no alternative to that.”

“All pregnant women should talk to their doctors for more information about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant,” he went on.

“Ideally, you don’t take it all, but if you have to, if you can’t tough it out, if there’s a problem, you’re going to end up doing it,” Trump said, noting that mothers should only take the lowest possible dose in the worst-case health scenarios.

The FDA will be notifying physicians against the use of acetaminophen “effective immediately,” Trump said.

Trump has called on Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to look into the causes of autism in the US, which he said is “among the most alarming public health developments in history.”

The White House cited data from studies showing there is “consistent associations between acetaminophen in pregnancy and autism” from researchers in Johns Hopkins, and the Nurses Health Study with researchers from Yale, Columbia and Harvard looked at 9,000 kids found that there is an association between acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders, the White House said.

A Mount Sinai Harvard study then reviewed the existing literature and found an “overwhelming” about of evidence pointing to an association.

The president also cast doubt on children needing a whole slew of vaccines at once at a young age.

“You have a little child, little fragile child, and you get a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess, 80 different blends, and they pump it in. So ideally, a woman won’t take Tylenol, and on the vaccines, it would be good instead of one visit where they pump the baby, you load it up with stuff, you do it over a period of four times or five times,” Trump said. 

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