By THOMAS BEAUMONT and LAURA UNGAR
Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Thursday reasserted the unproven hyperlink between the ache reliever Tylenol and autism, and recommended individuals who opposed the idea have been motivated by hatred for President Donald Trump.
Throughout a gathering with Trump and the Cupboard, Kennedy reiterated the connection, even whereas noting there was no medical proof to substantiate the declare. He additionally mistakenly described a pregnant lady’s anatomy and linked autism to circumcision.
“Anyone who takes the stuff throughout being pregnant except they need to is, is irresponsible,” Kennedy advised Trump and fellow Cupboard members. “It isn’t proof. We’re doing the research to make the proof.”
Kennedy has lengthy espoused unconventional beliefs about public well being, which have prompted concern amongst medical specialists that, as well being secretary, he may upend the nation’s evidence-based well being insurance policies.
Kennedy famous in the course of the assembly that he had seen a TikTok video on Thursday, which he stated featured a pregnant lady “gobbling Tylenol” and cursing Trump. “The extent of Trump derangement syndrome has now left the political panorama and now within the realm of pathology,” he stated. Kennedy additionally stated the girl was taking Tylenol “with a child in her placenta.”
A fetus develops within the uterus, not the placenta. The placenta is a brief organ that develops within the uterus throughout being pregnant and supplies oxygen, vitamins, and hormones to the rising fetus.
Kennedy’s assertion got here two weeks after he stood with Trump within the White Home because the president used his workplace to advertise unproven and, in some instances, discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines and autism.
Kennedy additionally stated Thursday that toddler boys who’re circumcised have double the speed of autism as a result of they’re given Tylenol after the process.
This declare appears to confer with a research within the Journal of the Royal Society of Medication from 2015, which checked out ritual circumcision and the chance of autism spectrum dysfunction in boys below the age of 10 in Denmark.
It discovered that those that had undergone the process, which includes the elimination of the foreskin from the penis, have been extra prone to develop autism than different boys within the research. Researchers recommended a possible hyperlink may be as a result of ache of the process. Researchers famous that they’d no information on painkillers or anesthetics used, and thus couldn’t tackle whether or not Tylenol was linked to autism.
Different researchers identified that the Denmark research checked out correlation, not causation. In addition they level to different research that discovered no proof to help a hyperlink between circumcision and autism.
The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Division of Science Training and the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis. The AP is solely chargeable for all content material.
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