Trump claims the Amish ‘have no autism’ in rambling speech about vaccines

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump pushed the unproven claim that parac­eta­mol and vac­ci­na­tions are linked to a ‘hor­ri­ble cri­sis’ of autism and its ‘mete­oric rise’ in the US.

Trump urged preg­nant women not to take Tylenol – which is the brand name used for parac­eta­mol in the US – unless they have very high fevers and they ‘can’t tough it out’.

Trump urged preg­nant women not to take Tylenol – which is the brand name used for parac­eta­mol in the US – unless they have very high fevers and they ‘can’t tough it out’.

He also claimed that com­mu­ni­ties like the Amish ‘don’t have autism’ in his ram­bling speech. 

‘Hor­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble cri­sis,’ Trump said of autism at the start of his remarks from the Roo­sevelt Room of the White House today.

The mete­oric rise in autism is among the most alarm­ing pub­lic health devel­op­ments in his­to­ry. There’s nev­er been any­thing like this.’

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump (cen­ter), along­side Sec­re­tary of Health and Human Ser­vices Robert F Kennedy Jr (left) and Medicare and Med­ic­aid Admin­is­tra­tor Mehmet Oz (right), speaks about autism in the Roo­sevelt Room of the White House in Wash­ing­ton, DC (Pic­ture: Get­ty Images)

Turn­ing to health sec­re­tary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who claimed there are stud­ies that sug­gest there are no cas­es in the Amish, Trump added: ‘The Amish. Yeah, I heard none. See, Bob­by wants to be care­ful with what he says, and he should, but I’m not so care­ful with what I say.

Trump claimed that autism rates have surged more than 400% since 2000 – but in that time, diag­noses have become eas­i­er to get and the term has expand­ed to include Asperger’s Syn­drome and oth­er off­shoots of Autism.

‘Instead of attack­ing those who ask ques­tions, every­one should be grate­ful to those try­ing to get answers to this com­plex sit­u­a­tion,’ Trump said.

Trump added that the US Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) would be issu­ing a notice that using the drug dur­ing preg­nan­cy ‘can be asso­ci­at­ed with a very increased of autism, so tak­ing Tylenol is not good’. 

The pres­i­dent repeat­ed­ly said that ‘there is no down­side in not tak­ing it’.

‘When you have your baby, don’t give your baby Tylenol’ unless it’s ‘absolute­ly nec­es­sary’, he said. ‘Fight like hell not to take it’.

The pres­i­dent said he had been ‘wait­ing for this meet­ing for 20 years’ and met with Robert F Kennedy Jr, now his health and human ser­vices sec­re­tary, about the issue while he was a real estate devel­op­er in New York.

Trump also said that babies are receiv­ing too many vac­cines, com­par­ing it to ‘shoot­ing up a horse’. 

Speak­ing after Trump, Kennedy said the FDA is ‘respond­ing to clin­i­cal and lab­o­ra­to­ry stud­ies’ sug­gest­ing a pos­si­ble link between using aceta­minophen while preg­nant and dis­or­ders like autism and ADHD. Tylenol is the best-sell­ing form of aceta­minophen in the US.

Fact check: yes, Amish communities have autism 

The Amish are a tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty which have roots in parts of the Unit­ed States. They live sim­ply, in seclud­ed com­mu­ni­ties, and reject many mod­ern ways of liv­ing.

Trump’s claim that the Amish ‘don’t have autism’ sim­ply isn’t true.

The cul­tur­al and reli­gious beliefs of the Amish mean that diag­nos­ing, or even recog­nis­ing autism, is dif­fi­cult. 

Many stud­ies have debunked the rumour that Trump has pushed into the main­stream. In 2008, the Jour­nal of Autism and Devel­op­men­tal Dis­or­ders found that autism among the Amish is sim­i­lar to lev­els in oth­er pop­u­la­tions.

Kennedy added that the FDA will noti­fy doc­tors about the risk of aceta­minophen to preg­nant women and that drug­mak­ers will be ordered to add safe­ty warn­ings on the labels.

He said that the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health has been focused ‘almost sole­ly on polit­i­cal­ly safe and entire­ly fruit­less research’ about what caus­es autism.

The FDA has also been direct­ed to approve a decades-old gener­ic drug, leu­cov­orin, for autis­tic chil­dren. Stud­ies have sug­gest­ed that leu­cov­orin could help chil­dren with autism symp­toms, but the ben­e­fits still need to be con­firmed through more stud­ies.

UK experts have said Trump’s announce­ment that parac­eta­mol use is ‘linked to autism’ is fear­mon­ger­ing.

Sci­en­tists and aca­d­e­mics have since slammed the claim, with one say­ing the claim risks stig­ma­tis­ing fam­i­lies who have autis­tic chil­dren as ‘hav­ing brought it on them­selves’.

It comes after Trump said on Sat­ur­day: ‘I think we found an answer to autism. I mean, for a lit­tle baby to be inject­ed with that much flu­id, even beyond the actu­al ingre­di­ents, they have some­times 80 dif­fer­ent vac­cines in them. It’s crazy.

‘You know that’s a com­mon sense thing too… It’s like you’re shoot­ing up a horse. You have a lit­tle body, a lit­tle baby, and you’re pump­ing this big thing. It’s a hor­ri­ble thing.’

The painkillers considered safe to use during pregnancy — and the ones to avoid

The last thing women need is a world leader deliv­er­ing med­ical mis­in­for­ma­tion. 

Paracetamol 

Parac­eta­mol is rec­om­mend­ed as the ‘first-choice painkiller’ for preg­nant women by the NHS.

Dr Ali­son Cave, chief safe­ty offi­cer at the MHRA, the UK’s reg­u­la­tor, said: ‘There is no evi­dence that tak­ing parac­eta­mol dur­ing preg­nan­cy caus­es autism in chil­dren.’

Aspirin — low doses considered safe

Low-dose aspirin, such as 75mg, is con­sid­ered safe to use through­out preg­nan­cy, but always check with your mid­wife or doc­tor.

Ibuprofen – no

The use of ibupro­fen dur­ing preg­nan­cy is not advised by the NHS unless pre­scribed by a doc­tor.

Deb­o­rah Grayson, a qual­i­fied British phar­ma­cist who runs Prac­tice With Con­fi­dence and is known as the God­moth­er of Phar­ma­col­o­gy on Tik­Tok,told Metro this is because Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflam­ma­to­ry Drugs (NSAIDs), like ibupro­fen ‘can have risks at all stages’ dur­ing preg­nan­cy.

The NHS says parac­eta­mol is the first choice of painkiller if you’re preg­nant, and is com­mon­ly tak­en dur­ing preg­nan­cy and does not harm your baby.

Dr Monique Botha, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor in social and devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy at DurhamUni­ver­si­ty, added: ‘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.

Dim­itrios Sias­sakos, pro­fes­sor in obstet­rics and gynae­col­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don and hon­orary con­sul­tant in obstet­rics at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don Hos­pi­tal (UCLH), said: ‘Autism results from sev­er­al fac­tors, often com­bined, par­tic­u­lar­ly genet­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion, and some­times low oxy­gen at the time of birth as a result of com­pli­ca­tions