The CMS administrator, vice president, and Senate Republican leader have broken with President Donald Trump on whether pregnant women should avoid taking acetaminophen to alleviate pain and fever. Former President Barack Obama also spoke out, saying the current administration’s claims undermine public health.
The Hill: Dr. Mehmet Oz Softens Trump’s Tylenol Warning For Pregnant Women
Dr. Mehmet Oz on Tuesday softened President Trump’s warnings that pregnant women should not take Tylenol due to a largely unproven link to autism. In an interview with TMZ, Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said pregnant women should consult with a physician and use the medication if they have a high fever. (Weixel, 9/24)
NBC News: Vance Says Pregnant Women Should ‘Follow Your Doctor’ When It Comes To Tylenol
Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that pregnant women should follow their physicians’ advice in deciding whether or not to take Tylenol, striking a different tone after President Donald Trump strongly discouraged its use. “What I took from the president’s announcement and also the CDC’s recommendations here is we just have to be careful,” Vance said in a NewsNation interview. “We know that some of these medications have side effects. We know that even despite those side effects, sometimes they’re necessary. So my guidance to pregnant women would be very simple, which is: Follow your doctor.” (Richards, 9/24)
Politico: Thune Breaks With Trump Admin Over Tylenol, Government Role In Free Speech
Senate Majority Leader John Thune broke slightly with the Trump administration Wednesday, splitting from the GOP on government regulation of free speech and recent warnings linking Tylenol to autism. In an interview with CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Thune condemned the “coercive use of government” in regulating TV programming and said such decisions “ought to be made by the companies” after ABC temporarily pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from the airwaves last week. (Wardwell, 9/24)
Politico: ‘Violence Against The Truth’: Obama Denounces Trump’s Tylenol Claims
Barack Obama has accused President Donald Trump of “violence against the truth” for linking autism to the use of Tylenol by pregnant women. The former president made a direct attack on his successor that was as rare for its forcefulness as for its setting — an arena stage on foreign soil in London on Wednesday — as he warned that the Trump administration’s claims undermine public health. (Bloom, 9/24)
CNN: Many In The Autism Community Say They Need Support, Not A ‘Cure’
At a very young age, Maxwell Huffman knew that he absorbed the world around him differently than most of his classmates. He was diagnosed with autism as a teenager, and nearly 20 years later, Huffman is an executive at Aspiritech, a Chicago-based nonprofit that works to find meaningful employment for people who have autism or are neurodiverse. (Musa, Hautau, Jaramillo-Plata and Ebanks, 9/24)
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Bloomberg: HHS Reposts Old Tylenol Tweet Warning On Use During Pregnancy
US Health and Human Services resurfaced an old social media post from an account that appeared to be Tylenol’s that cautioned against its use by pregnant women after the Trump administration linked the over-the-counter medication to autism. “We actually don’t recommend using any of our products while pregnant,” said the 2017 post from what appeared to be Tylenol’s account on the site then called Twitter. This post looked to be in response to a consumer question. (Nix and Brown, 9/24)
AP: Trump Leucovorin-For-Autism Announcement Surprises Doctor Who Proposed It
When President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would repurpose an old, generic drug as a new treatment for autism, it came as a surprise to many experts — including the physician who suggested the idea to the nation’s top health officials. Dr. Richard Frye told The Associated Press that he’d been talking with federal regulators about developing his own customized version of the drug for children with autism, assuming more research would be required. (Perrone, 9/24)
MedPage Today: Does FDA’s Leucovorin Decision Meet The Bar For Gold-Standard Science?
Although HHS under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made “gold-standard science” a priority, the principle appears to be absent from the FDA’s impending approval of leucovorin calcium tablets (Wellcovorin), experts told MedPage Today. The treatment doesn’t have evidence from large randomized controlled trials supporting its use in autism, and it went through an atypical FDA approval review process, they said. (Fiore, 9/24)
The Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr.’s Team Wanted To Tout An Autism Therapy. He Went After Tylenol Instead.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team had decided by the beginning of September to tell Americans that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, was a possible cause of autism. But officials were divided over how much emphasis to put on the painkiller and were planning to discuss it as one of many possible causes, people familiar with the matter said. Doctors that Kennedy had selected to lead key agencies under him—Jay Bhattacharya, Mehmet Oz and Marty Makary—suggested the big story should be leucovorin, a little-known generic drug in which they saw promise for alleviating autism symptoms. (Essley Whyte, 9/24)
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