When Mona, a mother in her thirties who lives in New Jersey, was pregnant, she had a fever which she treated with Tylenol. Six years later, her daughter was diagnosed with autism. According to President Trump, these two events just might be directly related.
In a White House press conference on Monday, President Trump tied the usage of Tylenol during pregnancy to rising rates of autism, effectively pointing the finger at mothers. “Taking Tylenol is not good,” he said, after struggling to pronounce the drug’s generic name of acetaminophen. “Alright, I’ll say it: it’s not good.” Appearing alongside Secretary of Health and Human Services and noted anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump announced that the Food and Drug Administration would be notifying physicians that use of Tylenol during pregnancy is associated with “a very increased risk of autism” despite insistence from experts that there is no relationship between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism. Across the country, many mothers of children with autism finished watching the press conference feeling blamed for their children’s diagnosis.
The moment Mona, whose name has been changed for her privacy, heard the announcement, it brought her right back to the initial stages of grief that came with finding out her daughter was autistic. “I blamed myself,” she says. “What did I eat? What did I drink? It’s really traumatizing to hear them blame [autism] on Tylenol, thereby blaming it on the woman. The mother: the one responsible for carrying life. It’s always, somehow, our fault.”
Emily Terwedo, a 43-year-old mother of three autistic children in Washington State, said the press conference left her at a loss for words. “It does feel heavy to be blamed. And again, it’s glossing over the fact that these children are a product of a mother and a father. And there’s medical history on both sides.” Studies have shown that autism is hereditary and 80 percent of cases can be linked to inherited genetic gene mutations. Terwedo is in the process of getting genetic testing for her three children, in the hopes of helping researchers isolate the genetic mutations that contribute to autism. But in her day-to-day life, she isn’t overcome by the question of why her children have autism. “I’m not looking for the cause. I’m just doing what I can moving forward,” she says.
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Jennifer Gutierrez is a 31-year-old mother of four in Florida. Her two youngest children, aged 11 and seven, are autistic. Though she voted for President Trump, she was disappointed by the Tylenol announcement. “I like Trump as a businessman,” she says, “until he comments on medical advice.” Gutierrez was particularly bothered by Trump saying “a lot of people could be saved” by mothers avoiding taking Tylenol when pregnant. “I don’t believe that [autistic] children need to be saved,” Gutierrez says. “The autism community has worked so hard over the past few decades to not be spoken about like that.” Gutierrez, who has a chronic illness, took Tylenol during her pregnancies. “And of course, that’s the first thing you think is, ‘Did I do something wrong?’” Though she took Tylenol with all four of her pregnancies — so why do only two of her children have autism? “I feel like bringing up Tylenol is just throwing spaghetti noodles at the wall and waiting for it to stick.”
Alyssa Villa, an epidemiologist who does health research consultations for a federal contracting agency, took to TikTok to correct the administration’s announcement. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Villa summarized the latest research. “Right now, there is no evidence of a casual relationship between acetaminophen (Tylenol) use in pregnancy and autism in children,” she says though she notes that some observational studies have noticed a correlation between moms who use Tylenol during pregnancy and their kids having a higher rate of autism or ADHD diagnoses. “But correlation does not equal causation,” Villa said. “Think of it this way: Pregnant women take Tylenol for fevers, infections, migraines, or pain, all of which on their own can affect fetal development. So the Tylenol might just be a marker for those underlying issues, not the cause.”
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The Trump administration has been targeting the cause and prevalence of autism as one of the key issues of RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again initiative. Trump has long been preoccupied with it; in 2007, he speculated that babies receive too many vaccinations at once, a claim he repeated this week while urging parents to space vaccines out. Trump also stressed the increase in autism diagnoses. While studies do show that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder increased from one in 150 in 2000 to one in 36 in 2020, Dr. Jamie Knopman, a reproductive endocrinologist, says “this is largely due to the expanded diagnostic testing criteria.” Additionally, there are now regular screenings for autism spectrum disorder, which may be a contributing factor in increasing numbers of diagnoses. Complicating Trump’s edict is the fact that acetaminophen is one of the only painkillers and fever reducers that is approved for use during pregnancy, though Trump suggested pregnant women just “tough it out.” Dr. Knopman worries about the risk of pregnant women not taking Tylenol. “Pregnant women did not cause their children to have autism by taking Tylenol. The risks of not taking Tylenol — high fevers, illness in pregnancy — have been proven to cause complications in pregnancy and to the developing baby,” she tells Rolling Stone. ”You do not need to tough it out.” In her work as a reproductive endocrinologist, Dr. Knopman says she spends much of her time assuring women that they are not at fault for their infertility or lost pregnancies. “Women will now add another layer of fear and guilt to being pregnant and being a parent,” she said. “I cannot tell you how much we take women back [in time] when we foster the narrative that they are to blame for their illnesses or for the illnesses of their children.”
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Not all mothers of autistic children were disturbed by the press conference. Alex Campos, a 29-year-old mother in Michigan who has a six-year-old son with autism, found Trump’s announcement validating. On TikTok, she posted a video of her and her husband watching the conference overlaid with the text “Just some parents of an autistic child, watching our government address concerns they’ve had for years.” In an interview, Campos tells Rolling Stone that her son had an adverse reaction to his one-month vaccines, ending up hospitalized with a high fever, for which he was treated with Tylenol (Trump addressed situations similar to this in his announcement, when he said, “and every time they give them a vaccine, they throw in Tylenol”). When her son was diagnosed with autism at four, Campos searched for answers. She’s always wondered if the Tylenol her son was treated with contributed to his autism diagnosis. Now, she was hearing the President echoing her concerns. “It hit us hard,” she said. “It felt good and bad. I’ve always felt feelings of guilt over his vaccines and the Tylenol and that whole hospital experience. It broke my heart a little bit because it validated a feeling that I’ve had forever.”
Campos cried while watching the press conference. She couldn’t believe that the suspicion she has long held was being broadcast by the president. “I’m glad that they’re researching, even if it’s just the beginning. Maybe there is a link or maybe there isn’t a link. But at least they’re doing something.”
