RFK Jr calls pregnant mothers taking Tylenol to protest Trump ‘pathological’

“Trump derangement syndrome” has reached pathological levels, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday at the monthly White House Cabinet meeting, highlighting a recent trend of pregnant mothers protesting President Donald Trump by taking Tylenol — despite warnings that the drug may be linked to autism.

“The level of Trump derangement syndrome has now left the political landscape, and it is now a pathology,” Kennedy said. “That a mother could overwhelm millions of years of maternal instinct to put her baby in danger.”

Kennedy told colleagues and the media that he watched a video of a pregnant medical professor from Columbia ingesting Tylenol on TikTok to protest Trump before the meeting, and that he was surprised that any mother would willingly ingest over-the-counter painkillers following reports that it was linked to skyrocketing autism trends.

“Any mother who takes this while pregnant just to get back at Donald Trump is doing something that is pathological,” he said. “And we see that across the board.”

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said “Trump derangement syndrome” among pregnant mothers protesting the president by ingesting Tylenol was “pathological.” (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump announced in September, accompanied by US health officials, that Tylenol taken during pregnancy “may be associated with a significantly increased risk of autism.”

Kennedy said at the same event that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are “turning over every stone to identify the ideology of the autism epidemic and how patients and parents can prevent and reverse this alarming trend.”

“We have broken down the traditional silos that have long separated these agencies, and we have accelerated research and advice,” Kennedy said. “Historically, the NIH has focused almost solely on politically safe and completely unsuccessful research into the genetic factors of autism. And that would be like studying the genetic factors of lung cancer without looking at cigarettes, and that’s what the NIH has been doing for 20 years.”

Tylenol maker Kenvue said it strongly disagreed with the administration’s assessment in a comment to Fox Digital in September.

“We believe that robust, independent scientific data clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism,” a company spokesperson said at the time. “We strongly disagree with any suggestion to the contrary and are deeply concerned about the health risk this poses to pregnant women.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Kenvue Thursday afternoon for additional comment on Kennedy and Trump’s latest remarks on Tylenol, but did not immediately receive a response.

Trump links autism to widely used over-the-counter drug

President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, September 22, 2025. (Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Following the September announcement, liberal pregnant moms began filming themselves taking Tylenol and posting the videos on X and TikTok to protest Trump. Critics have balked at claims that over-the-counter painkillers are linked to autism.

“It’s so suggestive that anyone taking this product while pregnant, unless they have to, is irresponsible,” Kennedy continued Thursday.

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Kennedy told Trump that, as early as 1970, Wisconsin researchers determined that about one in 20,000 eight-year-olds in that state had autism before skyrocketing in subsequent decades. Kennedy called rising autism rates a “national security issue.”

“Now it’s 1 in 12 for boys, 1 in 18, 19 for girls. So obviously there’s something, there’s something that’s artificially, I think, (inducing) something,” Trump added.

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Thursday before a Cabinet meeting honoring Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Kennedy added that there are a handful of studies highlighting Tylenol’s alleged links to autism, particularly in circumcised male babies.

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“Two studies show that children circumcised early have twice the rate of autism,” he said. “Most likely it’s because they’re being given Tylenol.”

Trump added that “there is a tremendous amount of evidence” regarding claims linking Tylenol to autism, and noted that he discussed the rising rate of autism with Kennedy 20 years ago.

“I studied this a long time ago,” Trump said, emphasizing that he was not a doctor himself. “You know, I met Bobby in my office 20 years ago. We were talking about the same thing 20 years ago. And I was a real estate developer, it bothered me that it seemed to be getting worse. But it’s so bad now, when you hear these numbers, it’s not even really sustainable.”

Diana Stancy of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.