Dr. Trump? The president reprises his COVID era, this time sharing unproven medical advice on autism

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump isn’t a doctor. But he played one on TV Monday, offering copious amounts of unproven medical advice that he suggested -- often without providing evidence -- might help reduce autism rates.

Trump repeatedly implored pregnant women to avoid taking the painkiller Tylenol, the bestselling form of acetaminophen. That's despite the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists long recommending acetaminophen as a safe option during pregnancy. He even weighed in on when children should be given painkillers.

Speaking alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., himself a vaccine skeptic, Trump stopped short of opposing all vaccines. But he said key immunizations should be delayed, or combination shots should be given separately — even though it has been proven that vaccines have no link to autism.

“Don’t let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you’ve ever seen in your life,” he said.

Trump also wildly overstated how such shots — some of which protect against four diseases — are given.

“I think it’s very bad. They’re pumping, it looks like they’re pumping into a horse," Trump said. "You have a little child. A little fragile child. And you’ve got a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess, 80 different blends, and they pump it in.”

Dr. Trump redux

The presentation recalled the early days of the coronavirus pandemic during Trump’s first term, when the president stood for daily White House briefings and tossed out grossly inaccurate claims — including famously suggesting that injecting disinfectants could help people.

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” Trump asked in April 2020. “As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

He later claimed he'd been joking, but those briefings soon stopped. His tone stayed serious Monday.

The president suggested unspecified problems with the the safe and effective MMR — measles, mumps and rubella — vaccine and advised parents to wait years later than now, until age 12, for hepatitis B vaccines to be given to children.

The theme he hit harder than any other, though, was declaring a supposed link between autism and acetaminophen, which is known in most countries outside the U.S. as paracetamol. Trump repeated, “Don’t take Tylenol,” with increasing urgency and eventually shouted it.

Tylenol maker Kenvue disputed any link between the drug and autism and said in a statement that if pregnant mothers don’t use Tylenol when in need, they could face a choice between suffering potentially dangerous fevers or using riskier painkiller alternatives.

Trump, Kennedy and many of the administration's top health officials all spoke, but largely repeated known statistics rather than new research findings. Trump appeared to acknowledge that science might not be on his side, saying at one point, “I’m just making these statements from me."

"I’m not making them from these doctors,” the president conceded. “Cause when they, uh, talk about, you know, different results, different studies, I talk about a lot of common sense. And they have that, too. They have that too, a lot.”

But then he later insisted he'd “spoken to many doctors about everything we’re talking about.”

Many scientists were appalled

“The announcement on autism was the saddest display of a lack of evidence, rumors, recycling old myths, lousy advice, outright lies, and dangerous advice I have ever witnessed by anyone in authority in the world claiming to know anything about science,” Arthur Caplan, of the New York University School of Medicine's Division of Medical Ethics, said in a statement. “What was said was not only unsupported and wrong but flat out malpractice in managing pregnancy and protecting fetal life.”

Ahead of the autism event, Trump had suggested that his administration had discovered new medical links that would dramatically explain why its rates have risen. But his preparation didn't include learning how to pronounce acetaminophen, which tripped him up.

“Asedo ... well, let’s see how we say that. Acid em ... menophin,” Trump stammered before continuing, “Acetaminophen? Is that OK?”

Trump also insisted there was “no downside” to Americans heeding his advice "other than a mother will have to, as I say, tough it out a little bit” and avoid Tylenol for pain while pregnant.

“Everything I said, there’s no downside to doing it," Trump said. "It can only be good.” Still, untreated fevers in pregnancy, particularly the first trimester, increase the risk for miscarriages, preterm birth and other problems, according to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

The president tried to head off such criticism by blaming pharmaceutical companies and “maybe doctors” for having suppressed critical medical information previously. He said his statements were based on “the information that we have.”

“I’m making them out front, and I’m making them loud," Trump said. "And I'm making them strongly."