US President Donald Trump wants to curb rising autism diagnoses, and has turned his sights on a popular over-the-counter (OTC) painkiller—Tylenol. On 22 September, Trump, alongside US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, announced “bold new actions to confront the nation’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) epidemic". The administration has linked the use of Tylenol by pregnant women to an increased risk of autism in children, leading to widespread alarm and criticism globally. Medica ...

Donald Trump is reportedly expected to claim there is a link between the use of paracetamol in pregnancy and the development of autism - but what does the evidence say?Americans consume more than 40% of all the world's paracetamol, spending in excess of $4bn a year on products containing acetaminophen (as it is known in America - or by its leading brand name, Tylenol). Autism rates in the US are also on the rise - going up from about one in 150 children in the year 2000, to around one in 30 today.There have ...