Trump’s Tylenol claims may be laughable, but his assault on science isn’t funny
Related Video: Autism Research EXPERT Says Trump’s TYLENOL Claims ‘EXTREME’ & ‘DEVASTATING’ | SUNRISE
This week’s bogus declaration from President Trump that Tylenol is directly linked to rising rates of autism spectrum disorders and ADHD in children marks the latest in the president’s attacks on a medical community he views as little more than smarmy elitist gatekeepers. We shouldn’t expect anything better from a man who once publicly asked whether people could inject bleach as a potential COVID-19 cure-all.
Trump’s rambling press conference laid bare that no one in the president’s orbit dares correct even his most unhinged conspiracy theories. His baffling claim that Cuba is autism-free because they can’t afford Tylenol should rank alongside former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s boast that there are no gays in Iran as one of the most embarrassingly stupid statements ever uttered by a head of state. And that wasn’t even the craziest thing Trump said that day!
Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz did more than just humiliate themselves on Monday. They provided yet another reminder to the American people that the Trump administration is committed to a brick-by-brick dismantling of America’s decades of scientific and medical leadership.
Some of Trump’s more out-there claims justifiably drew immediate pushback from doctors, scientists and regular people who confront illnesses like autism on a daily basis. His false claim that unvaccinated Amish communities don’t have autism has been a popular anti-vaxxer myth for years, but no actual research supports that claim. What’s more, a 2011 study of 1,000 Amish parents published in the journal Pediatrics found that the vast majority of Amish (86 percent) vaccinate their children.
Ditto his claims about Cuba, where 690 children out of every 100,000 received autism spectrum diagnoses in 2021. Trump is right about one thing; the lack of medical and financial resources in Cuba means that fewer families have access to autism screening, meaning the actual level of autism spectrum disorders in Cuba could be closer to global averages. And yes, Cubans can and do buy Tylenol just like Americans.
It’s a big enough problem that Trump and his cronies at HHS are pumping out a constant stream of medical disinformation that confuses American families and complicates their ability to make sound health care decisions. What’s worse is that Trump, Kennedy and their enablers are using their hatred of experts and love of conspiracy theories to undermine the scientific method itself. That doesn’t just jeopardize public health, it puts America at risk of becoming an intellectual backwater in a world once dominated by our scientific and medical prowess.
In February, the National Institutes of Health announced a 15 percent indirect cost rate cap for all grants — even grants already awarded — meaning research institutions conducting cutting-edge medical research would only be able to seek a fraction of what they previously received in government reimbursement. A federal judge permanently blocked that sweeping cut in April, but that didn’t stop the White House from finding new ways to hamstring the NIH. Just a few months later, Trump suspended more than $500 billion in funding for UCLA, including hundreds of billions in scientific research grants approved by the NIH. On Monday, a federal judge found that Trump’s UCLA funding freeze violated the law and ordered the feds to hand over the cash immediately.
Meanwhile, ambitious initiatives like the All Of Us Research Program have seen their budgets gutted by an administration uninterested in pioneering the next generation of scientific breakthroughs.
The 10-year-old All of Us program at the National Institutes of Health has recruited more than 850,000 volunteers, who provided genetic samples and health information with the goal of creating a massive research database for academic institutions and scientists. Data derived from All of Us has supported hundreds of groundbreaking studies that are powering medical and scientific innovation in the public and private sectors. Thanks to Trump’s sweeping budget cuts, that invaluable work is now in danger.
Science requires humility. It requires us to acknowledge what we do not know, and work toward a fuller understanding of complex things like genetics. Instead of humility, Trump and his team have met this critical moment with an open hostility toward any experts who know more than they do, and the result is an American scientific network that is falling apart before our very eyes.
Our country’s legacy of scientific leadership has long been the envy of the world. It is now at risk because of small men who feel threatened by ideas they don’t begin to understand. If America cedes its leadership in science and medicine to powers like China, we will find ourselves trapped in a downward slide from which we may never return. Our children deserve better than that grim future.
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.