Obama slams Trump over 'violence against the truth’ after US president linked paracetamol to autism
Barack Obama has hit out at Donald Trump, accusing him of “violence against the truth” after he claimed taking paracetamol while pregnant could cause autism.
Listen to this article
During a sit-down interview in London on Wednesday, the former president accused Mr Trump of “undermining public health” by telling pregnant women not to take the painkiller.
“We have the spectacle of my successor making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved,” Mr Obama said.
“All of that is violence against the truth.”
During the announcement on Monday, Mr Trump declared that taking Tylenol, the US equivalent of paracetamol, has a direct link to cases of autism in babies.
"There are certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills, that have no autism," the president claimed.
"Is that a correct statement?" He said, turning to US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Mr Trump said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would be notifying all US doctors with new guidance.
"Ideally, you don't take it at all, but if you have to, if you can't tough it out, if there's a problem, you're going to end up doing it."
The link has been widely slammed by world leaders and health experts alike.
Dr Monique Botha, associate professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University, said: "There are many studies which refute a link, but the most important was a Swedish study of 2.4 million births published in 2024 which used actual sibling data and found no relationship between exposure to paracetamol in utero and subsequent autism, ADHD or intellectual disability.
"This suggests no causal effect of paracetamol in autism."
Dr Botha added: "There is no robust evidence or convincing studies to suggest there is any causal relationship and any conclusions being drawn to the contrary are often motivated, under-evidenced, and unsupported by the most robust methods to answering this question.
"I am exceptionally confident in saying that no relationship exists.
"Similarly, pain relief for pregnant women is woefully lacking and paracetamol is a much safer pain relief option during pregnancy than basically any other alternative and we need to take pain seriously for women, including whilst pregnant.
"The fearmongering will prevent women from accessing the appropriate care during pregnancy.
"Further, it risks stigmatising families who have autistic children as having brought it on themselves and reinvigorates the long pattern of maternal shame and blame as we've seen re-emerge repeatedly over the last 70 years where we try to pay the fault of autism at the mother's door one way or another."