PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — President Donald Trump on Monday promoted an as-yet-unproven connection between Tylenol and autism. Medical experts, including those who study autism, said autism isn’t the result of just one factor and that pregnant women should seek medical advice before taking any medication.
Dr. Kristen Lyall, chair of epidemiology at Drexel University and researcher at the AJ Drexel Autism Center, said the White House statement is premature at best.
“A lot of people in the research field are concerned about overinterpretation, or kind of lack of readiness to come out and issue statements like this when the science is pretty inconsistent at this point,” she said.
Lyall’s research focuses on what leads to autism.
“Where the research is right now is not in a place of having a conclusive statement like that, there's been inconsistent evidence, and concerns that the reason for taking acetaminophen in a lot of these studies hasn't been fully accounted for, and we know that there are risks with fever,” Lyall said.
She said acetaminophen’s fever-reducing quality could be a good thing.
“We do have a pretty large number of replicated studies that have shown an effect of fever itself on increasing risk of autism,” Lyall said.
“I think it's good to encourage people to obtain medical advice from their doctor and individuals with medical training. I would say that the science on acetaminophen and autism is pretty inconsistent at this point.”