Dear HIFA colleagues,
I would like to flag this week's BMJ Editor's Choice and linked article. Below are extracts.
CITATION: Tylenol, vaccines, and autism: the medical mayhem of the MAGA methodologists
BMJ 2025; 391 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2084 (Published 03 October 2025)
Cite this as: BMJ 2025;391:r2084
Kamran Abbasi, editor in chief
Are the MAGA methodologists out of control? The chief methodologists of the Make America Great Again cult are Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr — and, as with everything that Trump reigns over, the willing and unwilling complicity of professionals, institutions, and the MAGA media is a given. This is problematic enough when evidence tells us that depriving people of their liberties and eroding democracy will harm health and wellbeing (doi:10.1136/bmj.m4040 doi:10.1136/bmj.m4088). Yet the MAGA methodologists are unchecked: their hubris extends to believing that they know best about science and medicine.
The credo of MAGA methodologists is to create a health crisis based on data that are unavailable and may not exist; misleading appraisals of the science; single studies that are preliminary, misinterpreted, or half remembered; and general amplification of misinformation. They are overlords of social media, giving them global reach to complement their political power in the US. Their credo dismisses credible science, say, on climate change, and positions malicious scientific nonsense as a legitimate expression of dissent and free speech.
The MAGA methodologists are particularly obsessed with autism...
Weak or misleading science promoted in the US by powerful leaders quickly infiltrates the world, feeding their fellow ideologues. The champions of robust data, science, and evidence in the Trump regime need to stand up and speak out. The cult of MAGA methodology is out of control, and it’s causing harm.
==
CITATION: Trump’s claims on Tylenol (paracetamol), vaccines, and autism—what’s the truth?
BMJ 2025; 390 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2025 (Published 25 September 2025)
Cite this as: BMJ 2025;390:r2025
Donald Trump has advised pregnant women not to take paracetamol (acetaminophen in the US, sold as Tylenol), claiming that its use in pregnancy is linked to autism in children....
Trump cited rising autism rates as reason for action, and it is true that diagnoses of the condition have risen rapidly over the past 30 years. One study reported that in the UK autism spectrum condition diagnoses rose by 787% between 1998 and 2018.3 In the US the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that in 2000 autism was diagnosed in one in 150 children but that by 2022 one in every 31 were given this diagnosis.
However, most experts agree that the increase is largely due to increased awareness, testing, and diagnosis and a wider definition of the condition. Successive changes in diagnostic manuals since the 1980s have expanded the condition from a narrow disorder affecting children with severe language and intellectual disabilities to a spectrum that also includes Asperger’s syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, and milder social-communication differences.
Sven Bölte, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatric science at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, says that rather than an “epidemic of autism” there may be an “epidemic of diagnoses.”...
Takeaway message
Scientists and doctors are clear that there is no scientific evidence to support Trump’s claims, and many are angry that this will cause further worry and confusion among parents.
Botha said, “Pain relief for pregnant women is woefully lacking, and paracetamol is a much safer pain relief option during pregnancy than basically any other alternative. We need to take pain seriously for women, including while pregnant.
“The fearmongering will prevent women from accessing the appropriate care during pregnancy. Further, it risks stigmatising families who have autistic children as having brought it on themselves, and it reinvigorates the long pattern of maternal shame and blame—as we’ve seen re-emerge repeatedly over the last 70 years.”
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org