Donald Trump's Tylenol briefing peddled junk science

Just as easy answers to explain complex conditions are scarce, so, too, are miracle cures. Yet Trump and his health leaders blithely overpromised on the potential of leucovorin, which they claimed could help with speech and behavioral problems in children with autism

- Lisa Jarvis, Tribune News Service

President Donald Trump spent several days promising Americans that “an answer to autism” was imminent. Instead, his big reveal on Monday offered families distorted science, false hope, and unproven and at times dangerous medical advice.

Flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top federal health officials, Trump linked autism to the use of acetaminophen — the active ingredient in Tylenol — during pregnancy. This, despite decades of research showing that the medication is safe. He offered no evidence to the contrary. He also repeated long-debunked claims that vaccines and the timing of the shots could be contributing to the increase in autism cases, also without presenting any evidence. And Trump and Kennedy announced that a form of folic acid called leucovorin might help treat symptoms of autism.

In promoting these unproven causes and treatments, Trump, Kennedy and other top health officials do a disservice not just to families and people with autism, but to pregnant women and children. The information provided at a rambling and often incoherent press briefing — during which Trump admonished pregnant women not to take Tylenol — could cause real harm. And it does nothing but create confusion and distract from genuine efforts to improve the lives of autistic people and their families.

The consensus among actual experts based on decades of research is that genetics - not just one gene, but hundreds - play a major role in autism. Scientists have also spent years trying to understand which environmental factors might magnify the inherited risk of autism.

And while early studies did suggest that acetaminophen might slightly raise the risk of autism, that research also failed to account for the reasons that pregnant women take the drug, explained David Mandell, associate director of the Center for Autism Research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.