Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he urged President Donald Trump to slow down before issuing a sweeping warning about Tylenol use during pregnancy.
According to the New York Post, Kennedy told The Atlantic that he briefed Trump earlier this year on research examining a possible link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and higher autism risk.
The findings were far from conclusive, he said, but significant enough to flag for the president.
Trump’s response, according to Kennedy, was immediate and forceful.
The president reportedly wanted to issue a stark public warning right away, prompting Kennedy to step in.
“You can’t do that,” Kennedy recalled telling him. “There’s nuance to it, and you can’t scare people away from Tylenol, and you’re going to get a huge amount of pushback from powerful pharmaceutical companies.”
Trump brushed off the concern, Kennedy said.
“I don’t give a s— about that,” Trump reportedly told him, before adding: “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it. Fight like hell not to take it.”
The comments stunned many in the medical community. Doctors emphasized that Tylenol remains one of the few widely recommended pain relief options for pregnant women and that abandoning it without alternatives could put patients at risk.
Kennedy himself has acknowledged that high fevers in pregnancy can endanger unborn children, underscoring the need for some form of safe symptom management.
The HHS secretary’s interest in the subject grew after an August review led by Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The paper compiled decades of studies exploring potential links between acetaminophen exposure and autism. However, it reached no definitive conclusion.
Kennedy told The Atlantic he sifted through roughly 70 studies and consulted multiple experts before briefing the president.
Separately, a 2017 Tylenol social media post resurfaced after the administration’s Sept. 22 announcement, noting that the company does not advise use during pregnancy—a warning that quickly went viral.
The political fallout grew when Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, publicly challenged the administration’s stance.
“HHS should release the new data that it has to support this claim,” Cassidy wrote. “The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case.”
“The concern is that women will be left with no options to manage pain in pregnancy. We must be compassionate to this problem.”
Cassidy and Kennedy have long disagreed on vaccines and scientific sourcing, the Atlantic noted. The senator told the outlet Kennedy often sent him the same research repeatedly, and that when he pointed out “statistical flaws,” Kennedy dismissed those concerns as “immaterial.”
