Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has again asserted an unproven connection between Tylenol and autism, suggesting that critics of this theory are driven by hatred towards President Donald Trump.
During a Cabinet meeting with President Trump, Kennedy reiterated the link, even while acknowledging a lack of medical evidence to support his claim.
He also made erroneous statements regarding a pregnant woman's anatomy and drew a connection between autism and circumcision. Kennedy's long-standing unconventional views on public health have raised significant concerns among medical experts, who fear his potential to undermine evidence-based health policies should he assume the role of health secretary.
“Anybody who takes the stuff during pregnancy unless they have to is, is irresponsible,” Kennedy told Trump and fellow Cabinet members. “It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof.”
He noted during the meeting that he had seen a TikTok video on Thursday, which he said featured a pregnant woman “gobbling Tylenol” and cursing Trump. “The level of Trump derangement syndrome has now left the political landscape and now in the realm of pathology,” he said. Kennedy also said the woman was taking Tylenol “with a baby in her placenta.”
A fetus develops in the uterus, not the placenta. The placenta is a temporary organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy and provides oxygen, nutrients, and hormones to the growing fetus.
Kennedy's statement came two weeks after he stood with Trump in the White House as the president used his office to promote unproven and, in some cases, discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines and autism.
Kennedy also said Thursday that infant boys who are circumcised have double the rate of autism because they are given Tylenol after the procedure.
This claim seems to refer to a study in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine from 2015, which looked at ritual circumcision and the risk of autism spectrum disorder in boys under the age of 10 in Denmark.
It found that those who had undergone the procedure, which involves the removal of the foreskin from the penis, were more likely to develop autism than other boys in the study. Researchers suggested a potential link might be due to the pain of the procedure. Researchers noted that they had no data on painkillers or anesthetics used, and thus couldn’t address whether Tylenol was linked to autism.
Other researchers pointed out that the Denmark study looked at correlation, not causation. They also point to other studies that found no evidence to support a link between circumcision and autism.
