When Donald Trump gave a press conference in late September urging pregnant women to avoid taking paracetamol unless medically necessary because of a possible link to autism, the reaction from the scientific community was swift and loud.
There is no scientific evidence that paracetamol – commonly sold as Tylenol in the US – causes autism. Instead, decades of research points to a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors that may increase the risk for autism, although no one gene for autism has been identified.
