Experts dismiss autism claims about paracetamol

Global health agencies and regulators have dismissed advice from Donald Trump that made an unproved link between autism and the use of everyday painkillers and vaccines.

- Oliver Holmes

Wes Streeting, the UK's health secretary, told the British public they should not "pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine".

On Monday, Trump told pregnant women to avoid taking Tylenol, a popular brand of acetaminophen known internationally as paracetamol, adding that those who could not "tough it out" should limit their intake.

He also said - in comments that risk exposing children to fatal diseases - that parents of young children should delay or avoid some vaccines. "Don't let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you've ever seen in your life," he said.

The World Health Organization said yesterday that questioning the value of lifesaving vaccines was misguided and that evidence linking paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism was "inconsistent".

"We know that vaccines do not cause autism," said the WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević. "Vaccines, as I said, save countless lives. So this is something that science has proven, and these things should not be really questioned."

Streeting was even more direct in his criticism, telling ITV: "I trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this. I've just got to be really clear about this: there is no evidence to link the use of paracetamol by pregnant women to autism in their children. None.