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Science Weekly

Fact-checking Trump’s autism announcement

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.21K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a televised press conference on Monday, Donald Trump and health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr made a series of unproven claims about autism and its links to paracetamol use in pregnant women, and about childhood vaccinations. The comments were immediately refuted by scientists and health agencies around the world, but many expressed concern about the impact of this misinformation being repeated at the highest levels of government. So what does the science really say? Madeleine Finlay speaks to Guardian science editor Ian Sample to factcheck the claims made in the announcement, and find out what decades of scientific research into autism tells us about its causes and why diagnoses are on the rise. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Transcript

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Back in April, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to find the cause of autism by

1:26.2

September.

1:30.1

And at a press conference on Monday,

1:32.3

surrounded by members of his health department,

1:35.0

President Donald Trump made an announcement.

1:37.6

First, effective immediately,

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the FDA will be notifying physicians at the use of...

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