Wes Streeting has rejected Donald Trump’s claims of a link between taking paracetamol in pregnancy and autism, urging mothers-to-be to ignore the US president’s remarks.
The health secretary challenged Trump’s statements, which medical experts have stressed are not based on evidence, as part of a drive to reassure mothers-to-be in the UK.
“I’ve just got to be really clear about this: there is no evidence to link the use of paracetamol by pregnant women to autism in their children. None,” Streeting said on ITV’s Lorraine.
“In fact a major study was done back in 2024 in Sweden, involving 2.4 million children, and it did not uphold those claims. So I would just say to people watching: don’t pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine. In fact, don’t even take my word for it as a politician. Listen to British doctors, British scientists, the NHS.
“It’s really important that at a time when you know there is scepticism – and I don’t think scepticism itself, asking questions, is in itself a bad thing, by all means ask questions – but we’ve got to follow medical science.”
Streeting spoke out after Trump claimed there had been a “meteoric rise” in the number of cases of autism, pinpointing paracetamol as a cause and advising women not to take the drug during their pregnancy. The US authorities intend that packets of the drug – known in the US as Tylenol – will in future carry labels linking it to an alleged higher risk of autism.
The National Autistic Society voiced its alarm at Trump and his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, blaming paracetamol for autism in children in the US.
“The incessant misinformation about autism from President Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr risks undermining decades of research by respected experts in the field,” said Mel Merritt, the charity’s head of policy and campaigns.
“Understandably, autistic people will be dismayed and frightened by this announcement, and we would urge our government and the NHS to stand by autistic people and to condemn this misinformation. To do otherwise risks creating further fear, stigmatisation and harm.
“We urge anyone looking for information about autism to visit websites from trusted organisations such as the NHS and the National Autistic Society.”
Medical and scientific experts in the UK have condemned Trump’s remarks.
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“There is a long history of a cottage industry of false causes and ‘treatments’ offered for autism that prey on desperate people’s hopes and fears,” said Dr Steven Kapp, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Portsmouth and member of the Coalition of Autism Scientists.
“It is sad that unqualified demagogues continue to disregard science.”
Prof Laurie Tomlinson, a National Institute of Health Research professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “Alongside my research experience, I am also the mother of two autistic children and I know that this announcement will cause distress and guilt to many parents, who often ask themselves whether they are to blame.
“I urge those parents to focus on the countless number of reputable sources of evidence published to date that do not show a link between paracetamol and autism, and to seek medical advice from their own GP or health practitioner.
“I urge you to not get caught up in a political misinformation agenda that is trying to hunt for an ‘easy’ answer as to how autism develops, and does not serve to help our children.”
