‘Trump derangement syndrome’ has spiraled to pathological levels, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during the White House’s monthly Cabinet meeting Thursday, pointing to a recent trend of pregnant moms protesting President Donald Trump by taking Tylenol — despite warnings the medicine could be tied to autism.
‘The level of Trump derangement syndrome has now left political landscapes, and it is now a pathology,’ Kennedy said. ‘That a mother could overwhelm millions of years of maternal instinct to put her baby at risk.’
Kennedy explained to his colleagues and the media that he watched a video of a pregnant Columbia medical professor ingesting Tylenol on TikTok to protest Trump ahead of the meeting, and was startled that any mom would willingly ingest the over-the-counter pain medication following reports it’s allegedly tied to skyrocketing autism trends.
‘Any mother who is taking this up during pregnancy just to get back into Donald Trump is doing something that is, it is pathological,’ he said. ‘And we’re seeing that across the board.’
Trump announced in September while flanked by U.S. health leaders that Tylenol taken during pregnancy ‘can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.’
Kennedy said during 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 fast-tracked research and guidance,’ said Kennedy. ‘Historically, NIH has focused on almost solely on politically safe and entirely fruitless research about the genetic drivers of autism. And that would be like studying the genetic drivers of lung cancer without looking at cigarettes, and that’s what NIH has been doing for 20 years.’
Tylenol manufacturer Kenvue said it strongly disagreed with the administration’s assessment in comment to Fox Digital in September.
‘We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism,’ a company spokesperson said at the time. ‘We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Kenvue Thursday afternoon for additional comment on Kennedy’s and Trump’s most recent Tylenol remarks but did not immediately receive a reply.
Following the September announcement, liberal pregnant moms began filming themselves taking Tylenol and posting the videos to X and TikTok as a way to protest Trump. Critics have balked at the claims that the common over-the-counter pain medicine is tied to autism.
‘It is so suggestive that anybody who takes this stuff during pregnancy, unless they have to, is irresponsible,’ Kennedy continued Thursday.
Kennedy told Trump that, back in 1970, researchers in Wisconsin determined that roughly one in 20,000 eight-year-olds in the state had autism before skyrocketing in the following decades. Kennedy called the increasing 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.
Kennedy continued that there are a handful of studies pointing to Tylenol’s alleged links to autism, including among male babies who are circumcised.
‘There’s two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism,’ he said. ‘It’s highly likely it’s because they’re given Tylenol.’
Trump added that ‘there’s a tremendous amount of proof’ surrounding the claims linking Tylenol to autism, and remarked that he has discussed the increasing autism rate with Kennedy going back 20 years.
‘I’ve studied this a long time ago,’ Trump said, noting he himself is not a doctor. ‘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.’
Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy contributed to this report.