HHS responds to report about autism and acetaminophen
Why it matters
A sitting HHS secretary publicly tying maternal acetaminophen use to autism, and floating leucovorin as a treatment, is a first, and it drew immediate pushback from mainstream researchers. The disagreement itself is the story.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce that maternal use of acetaminophen (Tylenol) is potentially linked to autism in a new report, according to sources reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The report also will suggest that leucovorin, also known as folinic acid, a medication used in conjunction with cancer drugs like methotrexate to counteract their toxic effects, can be used to treat autism symptoms, the sources said.
“The results of the leucovorin studies so far are inconsistent and based on small studies,” Alycia Halladay, PhD, chief science officer of the Autism Science Foundation, told MedPage Today. “Autism is too complex to be caused by one environmental factor or effectively treated by a single compound.”
In a statement, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) said it continues to advise that acetaminophen is appropriate to treat pain and fever during pregnancy, as untreated fever and pain carry their own risks for the fetus and mother.
Source
Wall Street JournalRelated coverage
New McCullough Foundation study: COVID-vaccinated children show higher odds of autism and ADHD in federal survey data
This is the McCullough Foundation’s newest paper, posted today, and it uses the federal government’s own National Health Interview Survey rather than a private dataset. That makes it easy for anyone, including HHS, to check. It is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed yet.
NIH finalizes its $51 million autism research initiative: 13 projects, none on vaccines
The administration promised a hard look at what causes autism. The money is now committed, and it is worth being precise about where it went: the largest federal award pool of the year funds thirteen projects, and not one of them studies vaccines. The vaccine question sits with a separate, much smaller contract that has yet to report anything.
Post“Kennedy is the saving grace”: Trump moves to remake the childhood schedule, and what is actually in force
In the span of six weeks the President signed an order cutting routine childhood vaccines from 18 diseases to 11, then stood beside Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and proposed splitting shots into five smaller doses. A viral clip called it a schedule of 72 shots reduced to 11 “by the stroke of a pen.” That is the biggest shift in federal vaccine posture in a generation, and it is also not yet law. Here is the record, and the reaction, side by side.