Trump on autism

[BeHappySloth]

Sorry if there is another thread - I did look.

I mean, wtf??!!

He tried...
the video shows his attempts before triumphantly producing Tylenol.

I see your anecdote and I raise you
mine.
Since she was born my daughter has been the carbon copy, personality wise, of my mother. One trait in particular which is very strong in both my mum and her granddaughter is recognised as something my mums grandad had, her mum (my gran) had. It’s something I knew my mum was ‘weird’ about as a kid - when she encountered certain situations she would lose control and I was terrified of her. I would go to quite extreme lengths (often colluding with my dad) to avoid this trigger.
My daughter is autistic, diagnosed age 9. My mum is not diagnosed but she clearly is autistic and I would suspect so were her mum and grandad. But they were all just considered ‘quirky’ - “you know what your mum’s like, just keep your head down.” “Don’t worry about what granny said. She doesn’t mean it. You know what she’s like.”

There is nothing wrong with my daughter - she doesn’t need fixing. But as my daughters school moves into the ‘ultra strict’ mode which seems to be so widespread, she needs a piece of paper to help others to understand why she reacts to some things the way she does. My mum even says her teachers just left her alone for a bit to cool down - that’s what has changed in our family history. The box we are trying to fit kids into at school has changed. Mum could mostly cope and it wasn’t an issue - my dd was struggling to fit into the really rigid demands. Once she’s through school I don’t think it will matter any more, as it hasn’t really mattered for mum.

I honestly feel sick when I hear this kind of thing. I had a knee injury when I was pregnant with DS and of course the only painkiller I could take was paracetamol. It was excruciating, so I took the allowed limit. DS has autism, which I have previously attributed to genetic tendency or hideous birth trauma, but now I'm wondering if it might have been the paracetamol I took. I googled it and I see that there is a study that does seem to make a link: https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/using-acetaminophen-during-pregnancy-may-increase-childrens-autism-and-adhd-risk/

Honestly, so upsetting.

Really hope this doesn't prevent women taking paracetamol for fever in pregnancy, fever is much more dangerous to your baby than a few doses of painkiller.

Me too. And also, I imagine there will the judgement from others if you take a paracetamol when pregnant now.

DS1’s autism was almost certainly caused by extreme prematurity rather than being genetic (or Trump’s mastermind new cause). Ironically the only time I recall taking paracetamol when I was pregnant with him was when I was in insane pain with contractions and the delightful registrar in the antenatal unit told me I couldn’t possibly be in labour at 23 weeks and to stop wasting his time, and sent me home.

An Irish politician Michael Healy Rae brought this subject up the other day. He’s calling for investigations into the sheer amount of kids being diagnosed in recent years.
There is an increase in children being diagnosed but that does not suggest there is an increase in autistic children does it? The main reasons for it are due to an increase in awareness among parents, educators, and healthcare professionals of autistic traits that previously went unnoticed or were misinterpreted, and better diagnostic practices. Not sure why you would consider Healy Rae an expert on this!

Nobody appeared to struggle or did poorly in exams.
Because they weren't in mainstream school and many many children did poorly in exams and struggled their way through the system. The stats for early school leavers was through the roof. Children were not even getting assessed for dyslexia back then. My mum is dyslexic, diagnosed as an adult she was told at 14 to leave school and get a trade because there was no point in her even doing her inter cert so she listened to the nuns and left as did many others.

Now it’s everywhere,
No, now children are being diagnosed properly and supported to remain in school and get an education which they have a right to, not forced to drop out or get schooled in "special schools" away from the mainstream.

Like I said there was nobody looking back through all my friends, siblings friends, classes, housing estate that you could look back and be confident they were probably autistic. Zero.
That you are aware of

I am late 50s and diagnosed autistic with ADHD by the NHS as are all my children. My father and grandfather were most definitely autistic too. I was very much around in the 70s and 80s and one of the many many women and girls who were lost to the system.

I took zero paracetamol during my pregnancies as I was obsessional about taking any drugs whilst pregnant enduring severe hyperemesis completely unmedicated.

The NHS needs to stand up and push back against these insane claims and recognise ND women and girls who have been and still are let down massively by the diagnoses system .

I most definitely did badly in exams and know many others ( what a stupid thing to say). Other undiagnosed women in my family left school at very young ages before taking any exams.

The ignorance on this subject is massive.

There's a number of things.
First, when I was a kid integrated education was not a thing, so likely you weren't in school with higher needs kids, they were in special schools or institutions. My parent was one of the parents who organised and lobbied for integrated education in Ireland, my sibling was one of the first to benefit. It's very recent.
Second, there were plenty of weird/naughty/considered stupid kids that nowadays would be dyslexic, autism level 1, ADHD. We just didn't know about it. Lots of kids left school early, or failed their exams, etc.
Third, we can't compare autism rates now and in the past because they've changed the diagnosis. Previously there were several different named conditions that more recently got grouped together as autism, with different levels to differentiate support needs.
Finally, we are much more accepting and inclusive of difference. When I was younger there would have been a fear of a label, now it's all about understanding yourself better to get support to thrive and live your best life. Lots of people are getting diagnoses now who in the past would have just struggled along.

I haven’t read the rest of the thread, but I was wondering if a new “brand” of paracetamol is about to come onto the market from a different big pharma and he’s invested in that?

I watched the whole press conference and they did refer to it as Acetaminophen (though Trump struggled to pronounce it) but in the US everyone calls it Tylenol just as we call it Paracetamol or Calpol.

US citizens voted for him. 🤷🏼‍♀️

For people who think ND is now over-diagnosed and there was “no problem 20 years ago” etc. I suggest you go look at the Prison service … prisons are rammed packed full of people who were disenfranchised from Education, thrown out of school because the school couldn’t cope, unable to keep a job, unable to regulate emotion etc

Maybe if a few of these people had been properly assessed, and supported, we might have a few less people in prison.

I’m not saying ever prisoner is, but under-diagnosis did not mean that the needs did not exist, it meant that they were badly managed.

They discussed this study on C4 news last night and it is not as clear as their headline makes out. Here is a good article on it:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02876-1#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20no%20association,really%20explained%20by%20confounding%20factors.

There was also previous larger study in Sweden that found no link. Good article on it here.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/22/can-you-use-tylenol-acetaminophen-paracetamol-during-pregnancy-is-it-safe-explainer
A 2024 study of nearly 2.5 million children in Sweden found no causal link between in utero exposure to acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
A 2025 revieww of 46 earlier studies did suggest a link between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and increased risks of these conditions, but the researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Harvard University and others said the study does not prove the drug caused the outcomes. They advised that pregnant women should continue to use acetaminophen as needed, at the lowest possible dose and for the shortest possible period.

Please DO NOT feel guilty you have done nothing wrong. This is why all this makes me so angry once again falsely blaming women. If you don't trust anything else Trump says why trust him on this!

Thank you @Pasly I will go and have a good look at those other links. I loathe and despise Trump but the Harvard study made me think it may be plausible.

Please understand that autism was rarely diagnosed especially not in women and ADHD is only recently recognised. My daughter has ADHD, she is adopted and pretty much all of her birth family are ND. My stepfather is late 70s and is pretty much the poster boy for ADHD. My dad was most likely ND as were many of his scientist friends at Cambridge.

Many of my friends are late diagnosed. It's just we know more about it. That the bouncy hyper disorganised girl and the quiet dreamy girl can both have ADHD. One might flourish academically and one may be a school refuser. An autistic child might flourish academically or be non verbal. Everyone is different.

It's incredibly offensive to say it's an epidemic, these are people.

Totally disagree. The Biden/Harris pivot was a shambles. She’d have been as shambolic a president as Biden was.
The rise of Trump is 100% the fault and responsibility of the Democrats. They’ve spent years (decades even) ignoring the concerns of a vast number of Americans and disappearing up their own backsides.
An even remotely more inclusive and tolerant candidate would have beaten Trump. The Democrats let the whole world down.

Because they probably don’t know how to use critical thinking skills and actually research, which includes looking at factual, thorough sources that are neutral and that disagree with their views, not just the ones that agree with them.

Some people are also actually stubborn as f-k and won’t be told because this is what they supposedly “see” without any actual information or insider knowledge to back it up. The type that makes snap judgements without considering the reasons behind it or how xyz is able to happen and when told actual truth and shown evidence by better informed people they rather believe they’re right than be told they have been misinformed or worse, wrong. Have several family members like that on both DH and my side, I just don’t bother. They rather believe what they hear on social media or in tabloids than look around and listen to actual people with experience and knowledge.

Look at the amount of young men who think women only want men that are 6ft tall, make 6 figures when you can literally look around and see that is not the case and even a google search will tell you the average man’s height in most countries is nowhere near that and it is more than obvious most men don’t make six figures.

"The democrats made me do it"

And I specifically said - and I ask you again - you want to risk them getting measles?

You are actually suggesting that people's kids be left exposed to the virus (and no one knows which kids are vaxxed and which are not) to see if there is any difference. How is this ethical?

"You would have to give half the kids non-vaccines. So you want to risk them getting eg measles or diptheria. That's your solution. Let half the kids get measles and let's see how that works out."

I see this kind of argument a lot, both in relation to the Democrats being to blame for the election of Trump and Labour being to blame for the potential re-election of Reform. It represents an utterly failure of logic.

The left is responsible for their own failures, no doubt. But they are not responsible for the failures of the right. If the Democrats were truly as unelectable as you claim, then the Republicans could have been confident that any presidential candidate that they offered up would win. They chose Trump. Just remember that fact... they chose him. They have to own that choice.

It feels like another attack on pregnant women in America, feels a bit dystopian. “No you can’t have an abortion”, “no you can’t take painkillers”, “no you can’t have a vaccine”. It’s like they’re pushing a narrative.

Oh, I totally get that. I have zero expectations of the Republicans - they are the lunatics in the asylum. I have high expectations of those who should be running the asylum, and they let the world down.

If Chinese people spoke English and Americans spoke Chinese, it’d only take a few years before Britain/Europe realised our world view is more similar to that of normal Chinese people than Americans!

Exactly.

They Republican party allowed a senile, convicted criminal loon to represent their whole party. Twice. Think about that. That's on them.

Remember the rats leaving the boat hen he was coming to the end of his last term and his behaviour became even more derranged? They'll say the same this time. "We didn't know, gov". Bunch of spineless, self-serving twats. How any person can forgive that level of dishonesty - AND vote for that shower again - is beyond me.