This week’s Trump administration Cabinet meeting featured everything out of a medical professional’s nightmare. Confusion about what a placenta is by the man in charge of health in this country, more false claims about Tylenol’s link to autism and new untrue claims about circumcision, Tylenol and autism risk.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made unfounded claims about the “link” between “early circumcision” and Tylenol use in babies and autism.
In the Cabinet meeting, Kennedy said, “There’s two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism,” referring to the surgical procedure in baby boys in which the foreskin of the penis is removed.
“It’s highly likely because they’re given Tylenol,” Kennedy continued, repeating the debunked claim that Tylenol use is linked to autism.
When asked for comment, the Department of Health and Human Services pointed to Kennedy’s recent post on X, which said, “as usual, the mainstream media attacks me for something I didn’t say in order to distract from the truth of what I did say ... An August 2025 Preprints.org review by Patel et al. directly validates my point that the observed autism correlation in circumcised boys is best explained by acetaminophen exposure, not circumcision itself.”
This is not the first time Kennedy has suggested Tylenol causes autism; just a few weeks ago, he said Tylenol use in pregnancy is linked to higher rates of autism (this is not true) and told...
Legal action has brought important decisions, from the scrapping of fossil fuel plants to revised climate plans This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris agreement. It is also a decade sin...