A Collection of Responses to the "Dangerously Irresponsible" White House Press Conference on Tylenol and Autism

Hello, welcome to my relaunched newsletter, read more about the deal here and please subscribe!

It was genuinely hard to watch without starting to smash things. The press conference delivered on Monday by the president, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and various other walking Dunning-Kruger demonstrations was so filled with misinformation, anti-scientific garbage, and outright lies that it's hard to know where to begin. The main announcement involved essentially blaming autism diagnoses on the use of acetominophen during pregnancy while also taking plenty of the usual shots at vaccines — extremely gross stuff, all around.

Much has already been said about the event, and so it seemed worthwhile to gather just a few of those reactions — there are plenty more, and plenty of well-done fact-checks and explainers as well — into one place. In short, there is no honest expert or even half-knowledgeable person out there who didn't think this was some of the worst bullshit the White House has done yet. To wit (emphasis mine throughout):

• "That was the most dangerously irresponsible press conference in the realm of public health in American history." Paul Offit, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and director of the Vaccine Education Center, to the Washington Post
• "Today’s White House event on autism was filled with dangerous claims and misleading information that sends a confusing message to parents and expecting parents and does a disservice to autistic individuals." – the American Academy of Pediatrics
• "This press conference was alarming – and seemed designed to be alarming. Despite the best evidence suggesting that acetaminophen (Tylenol) exposure during pregnancy does not increase the likelihood of later autism diagnosis, the President urged mothers to 'tough it out' instead of taking it. This goes beyond just falsely blaming acetaminophen, but extends blame to parents." – Columbia autism/other researcher Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, to The Transmitter
• "Whether you're talking vaccine policy or Tylenol, we aren't seeing that from the current administration. You can't trust pronouncements when no evidence is offered. Science isn't based off vibes or hunches." – Kevin Griffis, a spokesperson for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy's Vaccine Integrity Project
• "President Trump talked about what he thinks and feels without offering scientific evidence. He said 'tough it out', meaning don’t take Tylenol or give it to your child. It took me straight back to when moms were blamed for autism. If you can’t take the pain or deal with a fever, then it’s your fault if your child has autism. That was shocking. Simply shocking." – Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation
• "We prioritize science as the core of how we provide care, and that will never change." – Actual pop-up message greeting visitors to Tylenol.com this week and reaffirming its evidence base (not that we should take corporate word for things, but still)
• "Today’s announcement by HHS is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children. It is highly unsettling that our federal health agencies are willing to make an announcement that will affect the health and well-being of millions of people without the backing of reliable data." – Dr. Steven J. Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
• "I thought it was awful. I thought it was possibly the worst public health conference coming out of the White House I have ever seen. It was worse than the bleach presser from the pandemic. ... What he also did in my view, it's hard to see it any other way is he blamed millions of women for their children developing autism. And made it much much harder for pregnant women moving forward to be able to manage their pregnancies by telling them they can't take Tylenol.... It was terrible." – Dr. Ashish K. Jha, former White House Covid response coordinator, to The Bulwark's Jonathan Cohn

Finally, a quick update to my reporting a couple of weeks ago about HHS unleashing ChatGPT on the entirety of the department: per guidance shared with me from inside the National Institutes of Health (part of HHS), employees have now been given the green light to input "non-sensitive personally identifiable information" into the hallucination machine. That could include things like names and emails, or other info deemed low-risk if exposed.

They also can use their little chatbot buddy on "procurement sensitive data," which refers to acquisitions, contracts, technical evaluations, and "internal government deliberations." They are explicitly warned not to use the LLM for anything classified, or more sensitive personal information, which I'm sure comes as a great comfort to us all.