Freshly minted Make America Healthy Again adviser Dr. Ben Carson broke with Donald Trump over whether women should take Tylenol during pregnancy after the president declared they should “fight like hell” not to.
The retired neurosurgeon who served as HUD secretary during the president’s first term joined the Trump administration as a nutrition, health, and housing adviser for the Department of Agriculture just days after the president delivered a head-turning tirade linking Tylenol to autism.
His response was a sharp split from the claims espoused by Trump on Monday.
“Whenever you buy some kind of medicine, you’ll notice that there’s a warning label on it. May have this or may have that or the other. Doesn’t mean that’s going to happen,” Carson said. “That’s why we say, ‘Make these decisions with your health care provider who can help put it into perspective.’
“The benefit and the risk ratio changes on a lot of personal information,” Carson added. “That needs to be interpreted by somebody that knows the ins and outs of the situation.”
Carson is the latest Trump ally to break with the president and he delivered a much more measured response after Trump declared, “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it.”
The former HUD secretary’s comment was similar to those of Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who was in the Oval Office standing next to the president during his tirade.
Oz said in an interview with TMZ on Wednesday that if a person has a high fever, they should consult a doctor.
“The doctor’s almost certainly going to prescribe you something. Tylenol might be one of the things they give,” Oz said.
He said there are a lot of things not permissible to take for fevers and pain during pregnancy, but indicated Acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is “probably your best option.”
Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have also pushed back on the president’s argument for women to “tough it out” and refuse Tylenol during pregnancy. The president offered no new or specific scientific evidence to back up his declaration.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday said he was “very concerned” that Trump and HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy’s announcement would adversely impact pregnant women.
“I think that science ought to guide these discussions, these conversations, and our decision-making around our health,” Thune said.
Thune noted that many people in the medical community would come to a different conclusion about Tylenol than the president. He called for people to be very guarded in making medical assertions and make sure they’re “well grounded in science and medicine.”
His comments echoed a post from GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, who sounded the alarms on Trump and Kennedy’s announcement linking Tylenol to autism on Monday.
“HHS should release the new data that it has to support this claim. The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case,” Cassidy wrote on X. “The concern is that women will be left with no options to manage pain in pregnancy. We must be compassionate to this problem.”