Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Well being and Human Providers, speaks throughout a cupboard assembly on the White Home on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. Kennedy repeated assertions about hyperlinks between using Tylenol (acetaminophen) and autism, this time connecting the painkiller’s use through the circumcision process to autism. Photographer: Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg
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Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the media this week for its protection of statements he made at President Trump’s cupboard assembly on Thursday, wherein he linked Tylenol (acetaminophen), given to toddler boys after circumcision, to autism. Doubling down a day later, he insisted there’s a connection, even including hypotheses on the supposed causal course of. Kennedy’s repeating refuted (or at the least disputed) hyperlinks isn’t a one-off. He has typically accomplished this concerning publicity to substances comparable to acetaminophen, thimerosal and aluminum salts that he thinks are tied to autism.
Within the cupboard assembly, Kennedy acknowledged that research present youngsters who’re circumcised early have double the speed of autism and it’s “extremely probably as a result of they’re given Tylenol.” Whereas “this isn’t proof,” he stated, “we’re doing the research to make the proof.”
It’s unclear whether or not he meant his division is conducting new research or citing already current publications. In his post a day after the cupboard assembly, he defended himself in opposition to what he known as “mainstream media assaults” by citing a latest pre-print that raises concern about acetaminophen publicity in infancy.
Pre-print papers are usually not peer-reviewed. And the one Kennedy referred to isn’t main analysis. It’s a review article that seems centered on suggesting that acetaminophen is a main causal driver of autism, to the digital exclusion of different environmental or genetic components. The authors conducting the evaluation appear to method the examined literature by way of that filter.
Kennedy additionally implicitly referred to a 2015 Danish national cohort study printed within the Journal of the Royal Society of Drugs. Amongst boys born between 1994 and 2003, those that have been circumcised have been extra more likely to develop autism spectrum dysfunction.
What Kennedy didn’t disclose was that the research authors acknowledged quite a few limitations, together with the very fact they’d no knowledge on whether or not acetaminophen was truly administered through the circumcisions. The researchers wrote that whereas their proof was “suitable with a doable causal function of circumcision trauma in some instances of autism spectrum dysfunction,” they warned that “no agency conclusions must be drawn at this level.” They subsequently known as for future analysis.
The most recent reassertion by Kennedy of an unproven idea reminds us of what occurred simply two weeks in the past when each Trump and Kennedy suggested Tylenol might contribute to autism threat when utilized by pregnant ladies.
A number of large-scale research show no correlation between maternal use of acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental issues in offspring, together with autism.
We all know from Kennedy’s vaccine-skeptic views that he additionally tends to attach dots between substances present in vaccines and autism or different issues and illnesses. Thimerosal is one instance. Vaccine makers have lengthy used the mercury-based preservative to stop microbial development. Although the substance was faraway from most vaccines greater than 20 years in the past, experts don’t contemplate thimerosal unsafe. But Kennedy has linked it to autism. His new handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted in opposition to flu photographs containing thimerosal, regardless of lack of proof of destructive well being results. This solely impacts a comparatively small proportion (4%) of flu vaccines administered to People because the overwhelming majority of photographs don’t comprise thimerosal.
And this summer time, Kennedy stated he wished to look at aluminum in vaccines. Speaking to governors on July twenty sixth, Kennedy acknowledged “we have to take a look at the aluminum within the vaccines to see if that has something to do with this explosion of allergic reactions that started in 1989, which was the yr they expanded the vaccine schedule.” Aluminum salts are included in lots of vaccines as an adjuvant to spice up the immune response. Ought to ACIP in some unspecified time in the future advocate in opposition to vaccines containing this substance, this may have a far larger impression than the thimerosal resolution.
A not too long ago printed research of over a million individuals in Denmark found no link between aluminum and 50 power circumstances, together with autism, allergic reactions and autoimmune illnesses. But, in what Scientific American described as a “rare move” for a United States public official, Kennedy known as for this printed paper to be retracted. The journal rejected the request.
Confounding components could also be “on the root of a lot of what RFK Jr. cites and claims,” stated doctor and medical journalist, Celine Gounder, in an interview with CBS Information. That is what occurs if the connection between an publicity, say, acetaminophen, aluminum salts or thimerosal, and an final result (autism) is distorted by the presence of a 3rd variable or maybe extra.
The research Kennedy typically refers to level to affiliation and never causation. Furthermore, when one correctly controls for confounding components the correlations themselves are inclined to disappear.
