 "US President Donald Trump makes an announcement linking autism to childhood vaccines and to the use of popular pain medication Tylenol for pregnant women and children, claims which are not backed by decades of science, at the White House, in Washington, DC, US, September 22, 2025. Reuters")
United States President Donald Trump is back to making unsubstantiated medical claims. On Monday (September 22), he asked pregnant women to “tough it out” and avoid Tylenol over an unproven link to autism.
“There’s a rumour – and I don’t know if it’s so or not – that Cuba, they don’t have Tylenol because they don’t have the money for Tylenol. And they have virtually no autism,” Trump said at the White House.
From autism to COVID-19, we debunk Trump’s various misleading comments related to health.
Trump on autism
US President Trump has doubled down on his message that “taking Tylenol is not good” and to “fight like hell not to take it.”
He said pregnant women should “tough it out,” and that only an “extremely high fever” should warrant the use of the medicine.
“Don’t take it,” Trump said repeatedly for “acetaminophen,” or paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol.
A literature review published in August hinted at a possible link between exposure to Tylenol and autism, a neurodevelopmental condition. However, as France24 noted, other studies have found an opposite result.
Researchers of the report published last month also emphasised that more study is required, adding that pregnant women should not stop taking medication without consulting their doctors.
Experts have pointed out that there is no proven scientific link between Tylenol and autism.
“Suggestions that acetaminophen use in pregnancy causes autism are not only highly concerning to clinicians but also irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusing message they send to pregnant patients, including those who may need to rely on this beneficial medicine during pregnancy,” the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said in a statement on Monday.
The US Food and Drug Administration said in a letter to physicians that “a causal relationship has not been established” between autism and Tylenol and that scientific debate was ongoing.
David Mandell, a psychiatric epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told AFP that research suggests the possible risks to Tylenol exposure when pregnant “to be lower than the risk of having an uncontrolled infection during pregnancy.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday (September 23) that the evidence of a link between the use of paracetamol during pregnancy and autism remained inconsistent.
Vaccines & more
Trump also presented his theories on vaccines on Monday.
As he raised doubts over the MMR shot – which covers measles, mumps and rubella, the US president added: “This is based on what I feel.”
Trump also indicated that he would end the use of aluminium in vaccines, the safety of which has been widely researched.
He also insisted that there’s “no reason” to inoculate newborns against the highly contagious Hepatitis B.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B.” Trump later added, “I’m not a doctor but I’m giving my opinion.”
The US president said that children were being loaded up with “too much liquid” while being vaccinated. “They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace,” he said. “It looks like they’re pumping into a horse.”
Experts recommend giving the vaccine for incurable Hepatitis B to babies on the first day of life.
Trump’s anti-vaccine stance is shared by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Experts have warned that such advice could leave children vulnerable to otherwise preventable diseases.
In 2009, Trump had said “vaccines can be very dangerous” while warning Americans against overreacting to the H1N1 virus.
“I think the vaccines can be very dangerous. And obviously, you know, a lot of people are talking about vaccines for children with respect to autism. And every report comes out like, you know, that doesn’t happen. But a lot of people feel that the vaccines are what causes autism in children,” he told Fox News.
There is no evidence that vaccines cause or are linked to autism, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Ingesting disinfectants to treat COVID-19
During his first term as the US president, Trump made various outlandish claims about Covid-19. He repeatedly resisted lockdowns, masking and social distancing measures.
He argued the “cure” of social distancing measures could be worse than the coronavirus itself.
The Republican leader also backed unproven drugs like hydroxychloroquine.
“You’d be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers before you catch it, the frontline workers, many, many are taking it,” he told reporters in 2020. “I happen to be taking it.”
Trump admitted he did not know if the drug worked, and claimed, “If it doesn’t, you’re not going to get sick and die.”
The US Food and Drug Administration had warned against using the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.
Trump also spoke of bringing “light inside the body”, suggesting that the coronavirus does not survive under sunlight or heat.
Trump suggested that infected patients could kill the coronavirus by ingesting disinfectant. “I see the disinfectant, it knocks it out in a minute… is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside,” he said.
The US president later backtracked, saying he was being “sarcastic.”
‘HIV spreads through kissing’
In 1993, Trump suggested that HIV could be spread through kissing.
Discussing his sex life on an episode of The Howard Stern Show, he said, “I saw a report the other day, you may get AIDS by kissing.”
The claim is false as HIV/AIDS cannot be transmitted via saliva.
In a syndicated column from December 1992, Dr Anthony Fauci, former Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, observed it was “extraordinarily unlikely” that healthy people can transmit the disease through kissing.
“There are no well-documented cases of transmission of HIV by exchange of saliva,” Fauci said. “It is extraordinarily unlikely that a healthy person can be infected by HIV through French kissing.”
Ebola
In 2014, when the Ebola virus epidemic gripped West Africa, Trump spread disinformation.
He tweeted in October that “Ebola is much easier to transmit than the CDC and government representatives are admitting. Spreading all over Africa-and fast. Stop flights.”
In reality, only two cases of Ebola were reported in the US.
Even though the United States witnessed limited outbreak, Trump repeatedly warned disaster would occur in America unless then-President Barack Obama banned all travel to West Africa.
With inputs from agencies