Farage refuses to condemn Trump for rejected claims about paracetamol

Nigel Farage has refused to criticise Donald Trump's claims that paracetamol, often sold in the US as Tylenol, could cause autism.

- Aletha Adu

The Reform UK leader said yesterday that he had “no idea” if the US president had been right to tell pregnant women to avoid taking acetaminophen, known as paracetamol in the UK.

Scientists and global health agencies including the World Health Organization have strongly dismissed Trump’s false claims. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, told the British public they should not “pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine”.

But in a wide-ranging interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Farage was asked directly if Trump had been right to share the unproven claims. He said: “I have no idea, I’ve no idea. You know, we were told thalidomide was a very safe drug and it wasn’t. Who knows, Nick, I don’t know.”