The announcement of an announcement
At the Charlie Kirk memorial service on Sunday, September 21st, Donald Trump promised “one of the biggest medical announcements in US history” — a claim he would reveal the cause of autism and its treatment. On Monday, September 22nd, at a White House Oval Office event with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other health officials, Trump is expected to announce that Tylenol (paracetamol) use during pregnancy causes autism.
The room will be full of officials. The cameras will roll. The headlines will write themselves.
And none of it will be true. Leaving the question, what game is really being played — while we get played?
When fear masquerades as breakthrough
Trump’s claim flies in the face of established medical consensus. Major studies, including a comprehensive Swedish analysis of 2.48 million births published in 2024, found no causal link between acetaminophen — Tylenol’s active ingredient, called paracetamol outside North America — exposure and autism. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the NHS, and medical authorities worldwide continue to recommend paracetamol as the safest pain relief option for pregnant women.
Yet here we are again — autism as political theatre, our neurological reality reduced to a soundbite that serves power rather than people.
The promised “treatment” — leucovorin, a drug used for cancer and methanol poisoning — represents the same reductive thinking that has haunted our community for decades. Autism is not a disease to be cured; let alone a rising tide of diagnosed youth to be quashed. We are not broken versions of neurotypical people awaiting pharmaceutical salvation.
Full. Fucking. Stop.
Maternal blame, recycled again
Dr. Monique Botha of Durham University captures the deeper violence at work here: “The fearmongering will prevent women from accessing the appropriate care during pregnancy. Further, it risks stigmatising families who have autistic children as having brought it on themselves and reinvigorates the long pattern of maternal shame and blame.”
For seventy years, the medical establishment has found new ways to place autism at the mother’s door. Each theory crumbles under scrutiny, but the underlying message persists: someone must be to blame — for us.
This latest iteration carries particular cruelty. Pregnant women in pain will be forced to choose between their wellbeing and unfounded fear. Those who used paracetamol safely during pregnancy will carry manufactured guilt. Families will fragment under the weight of imagined responsibility. All because some politicians are pushing a new pawn.
The real harm in fake solutions and marketing mandates
Beyond the immediate damage to pregnant people, Trump’s announcement perpetuates a more insidious harm — the fundamental misunderstanding of what autism is and what the neurodivergent actually need.
We don’t need to be prevented. We need to be supported.
We don’t need pharmaceutical interventions. We need societal unlocking.
We don’t need our mothers to carry shame. We need our communities to be capable of awareness and compassion, and to carry understanding.
How radical my asks are! Please forgive me, greater populous. For my oh-so-unneeded words… Ha.
More adults are discovering their autistic identity, more children are being understood rather than pathologized, more families are finding language for experiences that were always there.
The rising rates of autism diagnosis — which Kennedy and Trump frame as an “epidemic” — actually represent something relatively basic: recognition; and are, in fact, the fields of neuroscience and noetic sciences. Consciousness and humanity eternally evolves, after all.
The truth is, nobody has a coherent answer for “what is neurodiversity?” — yet. That uncertainty should not, though, push us to refute it nor explain it too simply.
Autism results from complex genetic and environmental factors that science is still unravelling. Hundreds of genes have been linked to the condition. The interplay is intricate, multifaceted, and cannot be reduced to a single pharmaceutical culprit or cure.
What we know with certainty is this: those of us with varying minds have always existed, and will continue to exist all the while our species does. Our neurological differences are not medical emergencies requiring presidential intervention — they are human variations. I mean, what is their endgame after all? For every human in every “country” (a conceptualised piece of land with a tyrant-slave dynamic powered by “democracy”, a game we’re all allowed to cyclically participate in that decides not a lot) to be “typical”? What the fuck does that even mean? They don’t even know. That, I know.
The energy being spent on false causation theories could transform into support systems, accessible healthcare, suitable societies and environments, and employment opportunities. The political capital being invested in reductionism could yield genuine progression.
Instead, we get press conferences that treat our existence as a problem to be solved rather than a reality to be embraced.
Want my advice? Don’t listen to them. Listen to yourself. If you’re capable. While they still let ya!
And, if you’re taking paracetamol each time you perceive a hint of headache, ask yourself if you’d benefit from drinking more water and looking at screens less, first…
Citations
BBC News — Trump will reportedly link pain reliever Tylenol to autism – but many experts are sceptical
The Times — Trump to claim taking Tylenol in pregnancy is linked to autism
Harvard — Using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children’s autism and ADHD risk
NHS — Paracetamol for adults: painkiller to treat aches, pains and fever
