Login
EXCLUSIVE: HHS Official Responds to Women Popping Tylenol to Spite Trump
As videos circulate of pregnant women popping Tylenol tablets to spite Donald Trump, the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office on Women’s Health warned that every moment of pregnancy is critical for the baby’s development. Trump warned women Monday not to take Tylenol or its generic, acetaminophen, during pregnancy. He said evidence suggests that acetaminophen use during pregnancy, especially late in pregnancy, may cause autism in children.
“Every single moment of pregnancy is a critical time period, and so, before taking anything, we really encourage women to talk to their doctor to figure out what’s best for them,” Dr. Dorothy Fink, acting assistant secretary for HHS and head of the Office on Women’s Health, told The Daily Signal in an interview.
Pregnant women have posted videos on X and TikTok filming themselves taking a Tylenol tablet with captions like, “Here’s me, a PREGNANT woman, taking TYLENOL because I believe in science and not someone who has no medical background.”
Plastic Packaging Is Poisoning America, and MAGA Is Letting Corporations off the Hook
Despite growing scientific consensus, the “Make America Healthy Again” health report that dropped earlier this month failed to take a hard stand on plastics — one of the most pervasive and underregulated toxic threats that Americans face today. Until politicians are willing to stand up to corporations, we will continue to get sick and die from preventable causes.
In theory, there is broad agreement that Americans — especially our children — deserve to be healthy. That’s why Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again or MAHA platform has found supporters across party lines. By pointing to ultra-processed foods, pesticides and toxic chemicals as culprits in America’s worsening public health crisis, both MAHA and MAGA tap into rising concern over skyrocketing rates of chronic illness.
But the MAHA policy report didn’t deliver. Instead, it dodged accountability, downplayed industry responsibility, and quietly walked back any meaningful plan to confront the dangerous chemicals polluting our homes, schools, food and bodies.
RFK Jr. Is Targeting Vaccines and Tylenol. Are Prozac and Ozempic Next?
Tylenol may be only the beginning. For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has railed against a number of medications and therapeutics claiming without scientific consensus or evidence that they cause some kind of harm — autism (Tylenol), suicidal thoughts (Ozempic). Now, as President Trump’s head of Health and Human Services, he’s begun turning his opinions into public policy.
His Make American Healthy Again initiative has already made it harder for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and pushed unverified claims about Tylenol, and he’s just getting started. So what might be next? Kennedy’s already told us. On Monday, Kennedy and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary wrote in a letter to 22 Republican attorneys general that the FDA was reviewing evidence about the safety of abortion drug, mifepristone, which is used in nearly two-thirds of medical abortions. If access to the pill were restricted, it would significantly cut back on abortion access.
Another big target: antidepressants. During Kennedy’s confirmation hearings, he falsely claimed that people have a harder time stopping the use of serotonin-based antidepressants “than people have getting off of heroin.” He’s also made the unfounded claim that teenagers who use them are more likely to commit school shootings (they aren’t.) One of the goals of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement is to “assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.” Any restrictions on them would be a grave concern to the approximately 11% of the population that uses them to treat depression, anxiety and other issues.
Trump Is Betting That Stance on Children’s Health Will Play Well With MAGA Base
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Jennifer Foskey, who has a 12-year-old daughter with autism, eagerly voted for President Trump last fall for the third time. When he labeled Tylenol use by pregnant women as a potential cause of autism on Monday, she felt a mixture of guilt and shock.
“I’ve had four pregnancies, and I’ve taken Tylenol with all of them, just for all the aches and pains that come along with being pregnant,” the Jacksonville, Fla., homemaker said. “So I thought, was this my fault?”
Though Foskey said that she was skeptical of Trump’s claims about the drug and that she needed to see more research, the president’s efforts to spotlight autism have made her an even bigger supporter. “Because he’s not afraid to talk about it,” she said.
Trump’s Make America Healthy Again initiative has upended public-health guidance on everything from widely used pain medication to childhood obesity, chemicals in food, and vaccines. The moves have set off alarms in the medical community and prompted concern from some Republican lawmakers. But many of Trump’s supporters said they are excited by the changes.
In Hepatitis B Vaccine Debate, CDC Panel Sidesteps Key Exposure Risk
The Trump administration is continuing its push to revise federal guidelines to delay the hepatitis B vaccine newborn dose for most children. This comes despite a failed attempt to do so at the most recent meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Both President Donald Trump and some newly appointed ACIP members have mischaracterized how the liver disease spreads, according to medical experts, including those working at the CDC. The ACIP panel’s recommendations can determine insurance coverage for immunizations. At a White House press conference on Sept. 22, Trump, in advocating for delaying the newborn vaccine dose, falsely claimed that hepatitis B is solely a sexually transmitted infection.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B. So I would say wait till the baby is 12 years old and formed and take hepatitis B,” Trump said.
Republicans Have a MAHA Problem. Democrats See an Opportunity
Zen Honeycutt and droves of other supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement cast their votes for President Donald Trump last year after hearing the promises that he and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, made about cracking down on pesticides and chemicals in food.
“Many people voted for Trump because he talked about pesticides and chronic diseases in the same sentence on the campaign trail,” says Honeycutt, the founder and executive director of Moms Across America, a group linked to the MAHA movement. “It was historic. Millions of mothers and fathers heard that and we cheered and cried. We thought, ‘They’re actually going to do something about pesticides in the food supply.’”
But as the Administration has floundered in making real progress on these issues — and some Republicans in Congress push back against their agenda — MAHA supporters are voicing their frustration, and with it, a threat to take their votes elsewhere. “We will not ‘Make America Healthy Again’ if we don’t get toxins out of the food supply,” says Honeycutt, a close ally of Kennedy’s. “I am adamant, and I am speaking up. At this point, I do not care if it ruffles feathers.”
Honeycutt and other “MAHA moms” were disappointed by the MAHA commission report released in September that they say lacked meaningful regulatory action on pesticides and ultra-processed foods and watered down earlier proposals to overhaul the food system.
