Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in an interview published Monday that he warned President Trump to be cautious after briefing the commander in chief about research finding a possible link between pregnant women taking Tylenol and an increased risk of autism.
The president initially suggested the administration quickly put out a dramatic warning on social media, the HHS secretary recalled in a lengthy Atlantic profile piece.
“You can’t do that,” Kennedy recounted telling Trump in response.
“There’s nuance to it, and you can’t scare people away from Tylenol, and you’re going to get a huge amount of pushback from powerful pharmaceutical companies.”
Trump reportedly waved off RFK Jr.’s concerns, telling his Cabinet member: “I don’t give a s— about that.”
Trump, Kennedy, and other federal health officials briefed the public Sept. 22 about their concerns with the popular pain relief medicine.
“Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it,” Trump declared. “Fight like hell not to take it.”
Most medical experts were appalled by the move, stressing that Tylenol was one of the few safe pain relief options available to pregnant women.
Kennedy himself had acknowledged that high fevers in pregnant women are known to have adverse effects on unborn children.
The 71-year-old’s interest in the drug was sparked by an August review study by Andrea Baccarelli, the dean of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, that rounded up existing research on links between acetaminophen — the main ingredient in Tylenol — and rising autism rates.
That study was not definitive about any possible connection.
According to the Atlantic, Kennedy pored over 70 different studies on the topic and consulted several experts before briefing Trump.
Tylenol previously posted on social media in 2017 that it doesn’t advise using its products while pregnant, a warning that went viral in response to the Sept. 22 announcement.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, publicly split with the Trump administration over the announcement.
“HHS should release the new data that it has to support this claim,” Cassidy wrote on social media at the time. “The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case.”
“The concern is that women will be left with no options to manage pain in pregnancy. We must be compassionate to this problem.”
Kennedy and Cassidy, a trained gastroenterologist, have had lively disagreements over vaccines, the Atlantic revealed.
“I find that he often will send me the same article more than once,” Cassidy revealed to the outlet, adding that when he would highlight “statistical flaws” in some of those pieces, Kennedy would shrug them off as “immaterial.”
