Barack Obama is the latest to have reacted to Donald Trump’s astounding claim that Tylenol is to blame for the increase in autism diagnoses in the US over the past few decades.
It was at Sunday’s memorial for political activist Charlie Kirk that the current POTUS teased a bombshell announcement to come on Monday. “I think we found an answer to autism,” Trump told the tens of thousands in attendance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
His detractors around the world likely rolled their eyes in that moment, wondering what would come from the press conference scheduled for the following day. Trump promised it would be “one of the most important news conferences” he ever had.
Whether that’s true or not only time will tell, but it was certainly one of the most controversial, and that – as it relates to Trump – says a hell of a lot.
Flanked by RFK Jr., U.S. Department Secretary of Health and Human Services, Trump outlined a clear link between acetaminophen (known by its brand name, Tylenol) and autism in children.
Trump said that “effective immediately” the Food and Drug Administration “will be notifying physicians that the use of acetaminophen,” commonly sold under the brand name Tylenol, “during pregnancy can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.”
Rather worryingly, the POTUS also said he was dispensing vaccine advice based on “common sense” and “what I feel”. Scientifically speaking, no link between acetaminophen and Autism Spectrum Disorders currently exists, leading to a good amount of backlash following Trump’s announcement.
That the president is ready to stand by his decision irrespective of how much it flies in the face of the information we currently know to be medically sound and reasonable is hardly surprising. The intensity with which he and RFK Jr. appear to be fixating on finding an “answer” to autism, however, is concerning to many.
That includes former president Barack Obama, who yesterday claimed that the current administration’s new proposal posed a threat to public health.
“We have the spectacle of my successor in the Oval Office making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved,” Obama said during an interview at the O2 Arena in London. “It undermines public health … that can do harm to women.”
Obama also labeled Trump’s claim about Tylenol a “violence against the truth”.
Obama has kept a relatively low profile since leaving the White House, though in recent times his output has increased in tandem with the political unrest and rise of apparent discontent in the US.
What do you make of Obama’s comments on Trump’s declaration? And what of said declaration itself? Let us know in the comments.
