At a Sept. 22 press conference, Donald Trump declared that pregnant women should not take acetaminophen — the active ingredient in Tylenol, baselessly claiming that the over-the-counter medication taken during pregnancy causes autism in children. Flanked by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz, Trump proclaimed, “I think you shouldn’t take it and you shouldn’t take it during the entire pregnancy.” Mainstream medical organizations immediately condemned the claim, stressing that unrelieved fever in pregnancy can cause fetal heart defects and brain damage.
The Tylenol/autism myth is only the latest in a wave of medical disinformation spread by this administration. The pattern of targeting widely used, evidence-based medications and recasting them as threats has become a signature tactic. On Sept. 19, Kennedy and FDA head Marty Makary announced a new “safety review” of mifepristone, a medication that has been safely used for early pregnancy termination by 7.5 million American women since the FDA approval in 2000. Ignoring over one hundred peer reviewed studies proving the safety of mifepristone, Kennedy and Makary are advancing a review of the medication premised on a single non-peer reviewed report written by an extreme anti-abortion organization. Leading medical researchers dismissed the report as “methodologically flawed and based on unverified and unreliable data.” In short, this is regulatory theater: politics masquerading as medicine. And it doesn’t stop at Tylenol.
The Trump administration has also pushed the myth that hormonal contraceptives cause abortion. In a press release justifying a plan to destroy $9.7 million worth of USAID-purchased contraceptives originally intended for distribution in low-income countries, Trump officials stated, “the administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.” The contraceptives marked for destruction include two million packets of birth control pills and nearly two million doses of injectable contraceptives.
Within the U.S., Republican lawmakers are dismantling reproductive health care access. Their budget reconciliation bill blocked patients from using Medicaid at Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, STI testing and contraception, a restriction that falls hardest on low-income women who rely on Medicaid for basic care. This move effectively defunded Planned Parenthood, shuttering clinics nationwide and leaving over one million low-income women without access to health care. Rather than restoring this health care, Republicans are now channeling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the $1.7 billion Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) industry, which spreads medical disinformation about contraception, pregnancy and abortion. The CPC industry falsely brands abortion as dangerous, despite the fact that carrying a pregnancy to term is roughly 14 times more dangerous than abortion.
With misinformation mounting and access to care eroding, we need bold, creative action to confront the Trump administration’s dangerous onslaught against women’s reproductive health — just as states have joined forces to counter its vaccine disinformation. In September, a coalition of seven states and New York City formed the new Northeast Public Health Collaborative to advance evidence-based vaccine recommendations. The acting health commissioner of New York City Dr. Michelle Morse explained, “The collaborative is working together to rebuild public trust and provide factual information, so people can make informed decisions about their health, and continue our critical work to address health inequities.” The collaborative is enabling public health leaders “to share expertise, improve coordination, enhance capacity, strengthen regional readiness, and promote and protect evidence-based public health.” Since forming, the collaborative has issued its own vaccination guidelines that directly counter the slate of changes made to federal vaccine recommendations by Robert F. Kennedy’s hand-selected Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Then just last week, 15 Democratic governors launched a new organization — the Governors Public Health Alliance — to counter Trump administration misinformation.
We believe the Northeast Public Health Collaborative and the Governors Public Health Alliance should extend their work to counter the Trump administration’s attacks on reproductive health care. Medical associations like ACOG have already condemned Trump administration misinformation on contraception, pregnancy and abortion. Now, state and local governments must marshal their resources to push back against this disinformation and the Trump administration’s attacks on reproductive health care access. They should share strategies to protect access to evidence-based reproductive health care. For example, Massachusetts has groundbreaking strategies for countering deceptive practices and medical disinformation spread by its 34 CPCs. Another example is Illinois’ recently enacted law, HB 3637, allowing clinicians to continue prescribing and dispensing the mifepristone, even if the Trump administration rolls back the FDA’s longstanding approval of the medication.
“When our states speak in concert, our voice carries farther, and our impact deepens,” said Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health Robbie Goldstein, a member of the Northeast Public Health Collaborative. We call on Goldstein and other members of these new state public health coalitions: it’s time for you to wield your collective voices to defend evidence-based reproductive health care and stop the Trump administration’s escalating attack on women’s reproductive health.
Carrie N. Baker is a professor in the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Smith College and a regular contributor to Ms. Magazine. Colleen Lynch is a junior at Smith College majoring in the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality.