SEPTEMBER 26, 2025 | OPINION | By Kole Petersen
On Monday, Sept. 22, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood together for what they referred to as a “historic” announcement on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Before this announcement, Trump and Kennedy Jr. had boasted they had found the “answer” for ASD, purporting their “discoveries” as news that would shake the way we understand the disability.
During this White House press conference, Trump said that the FDA would update drug labeling discouraging pregnant women from taking acetaminophen, suggesting a significant link between the painkiller and ASD. “If you’re pregnant, don’t take Tylenol, and don’t give it to the baby after the baby is born,” Trump said. He expanded upon this point by claiming that communities without access to the medicine have “no autism,” while ASD affects 1 in 12 boys in those that do. Additionally, he bafflingly, incorrectly asserted that the Amish and Cuba are not affected by autism, when research has found that both communities have autistic people within them. Furthering his public stance against medications in relation to ASD, he also lamented that they “pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace.”
Yes, Trump and Kennedy Jr. told the entire United States that Tylenol, one of the most commonly taken medications in the world, causes autism.
Although officials pointed to a study conducted by Harvard and other researchers about this topic during Monday’s conference, their claim that Tylenol causes autism has very little empirical evidence and goes completely against scientific evidence. Autism experts at the CDC were not consulted nor asked to review the findings and recommendations, a historically unusual but recently common move by the Trump administration regarding ASD.
I will dedicate as much effort to debunking this absurd statement as they must have devoted to forming it. University of Massachusetts-Lowell researcher Ann Bauer, the third author on the aforementioned Harvard study, believes that pregnant women should be told about possible risks from acetaminophen, but that it is far too soon to have federal guidance. “It’s a sound-bite universe, and everyone wants a simple solution,” Bauer said regarding the situation.
Furthermore, while acetaminophen use has remained steady over the last two decades, ASD diagnoses have increased, suggesting that there is no correlation between these variables.
In short, there is no conclusive evidence that acetaminophen has anything to do with the increase in ASD diagnoses. In all likelihood, the hypothesis that broadened definitions of autism, changes in diagnostic criteria, increased awareness and increased screenings as well as visits are the primary factors for this increase. In any case, Trump and Kennedy Jr.’s statement is incredibly anti-science and anti-disability, substantiating eugenicist attitudes about neurological disabilities as a whole. The recent statements about ASD made by Trump and Kennedy Jr. portray autism as a death sentence, something that is robbing young kids’ lives before they even begin, something that makes them unable to use the toilet by themselves. This discourse linking human value to productivity frames disabled people’s lives as useless and disability as something that should be eliminated at all costs.
By continually phrasing ASD as an epidemic that needs to be addressed, the Trump administration is framing the disability as a problem that society needs to deal with, rather than a condition that we must accept. By framing autism research as a mystery that the current administration is working hard to uncover, they are ignoring the fact that autism research has been conducted for many decades, which has revealed crucial information about genetic and sociological factors associated with ASD. By continually announcing easy-to-understand, ‘simple fixes’ for the rise of ASD diagnoses, the federal government is telling the American people that autistic people should not exist in our 21st-century society.
Thankfully, there has been a significant amount of organizational pushback against this announcement, including statements by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Psychiatric Association and the FDA itself. However, the people who are willing to believe Trump and Kennedy Jr.’s announcement are unlikely to be swayed by these declarations. As I reported in my article about the bogus ‘study’ linking Girl Scout cookies to ASD, many Americans, particularly parents of autistic children, are emotionally invested in the ‘problem’ of rising ASD diagnoses. When news coverage supports their preexisting mindset, they quickly latch onto it and are unwilling to let go. Clearly, trying to debunk unscientific claims with scientific evidence is largely not going to change these people’s minds.
What we can do, however, is continue to remind the world that autistic people exist, that autistic voices have valuable things to contribute and that autistic minds are not inferior to neurotypical ones. If we can change people’s perceptions on how they view autistic people, then we may be able to help them understand that ASD is not something that needs to be exterminated, but rather something that should be understood, respected and elevated. ASD is not a disease negatively impacting society, needing to be eradicated through the dismissal of medicine. It is a fact of life that increases the diversity of our society, and it must be viewed with equity.