With about 90,000 people present at the memorial for late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk Sept. 21, President Donald Trump took the stage. Trump’s speech began as an ode to Kirk, but he soon transitioned to discuss a different topic: autism. Trump told the audience that on the following day, there would be “one of the biggest announcements, really medically, I think, in the history of our country.”
This announcement attempted to answer a question researchers have been studying for decades: What causes autism? The answer, the Trump administration claimed, was Tylenol usage during pregnancy.
This announcement was immediately met with public outrage and disagreement. Critics rejected the claim, leading many people to question whether Tylenol was the autism answer, or if it was another falsehood being tacked on to an already misinformation-ridden diagnosis.
Neuropsychologist Dr. Susan Bookheimer was the co-director of UCLA’s Center for Autism Research & Treatment before her retirement earlier this year and has been involved in the center’s autism imaging projects for 26 years. Bookheimer describes autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder that is primarily of genetic origin, a description consistent with definitions provided by the Mayo Clinic and the CDC. These genetic variations can occur in the form of de novo or inherited mutations, both of which can manifest as severe delays or can have no impact on the individual possessing them. The exact criteria required for a diagnosis of autism have varied over the years, with requirements growing broader over time, Bookheimer said.
“When it was first described, the primary features for what we would now call ‘profound autism’ would have been a severe deficit in social communication, usually a language delay, absent language or echolalic language, difficulty with any kind of social interaction and communication … and repetitive stereotyped behaviors,” Bookheimer said. “The definition has broadened over the years to include what used to be called Asperger’s disorder, which was basically a description of individuals who had features of autism, mostly involving the social realm: social communication, social skills, social cognition, repetitive behaviors, stereotyped behaviors or narrow interests.”
Ever since the beginning of autism research, misinformation surrounding the diagnosis has run rampant. In the 1940s, child psychiatrist Leo Kanner theorized that the condition was caused by “refrigerator mothers,” describing mothers lacking an emotional connection with their children. Bookheimer said this belief created a “great stigma,” as parents did not want to be blamed for their children’s diagnoses.
About 55 years after Kanner recanted his own theory, claims surrounding the cause of autism continue to swirl. Since 1998, one such hypothesis — now disproven — claiming vaccines are linked to autism has been on the public’s mind.
“When the idea was first proposed, it was certainly a plausible idea. As it turns out, the person who first posed that idea had proposed it on the basis of only nine cases — the majority of whom were later seen by others and found not to have autism,” Bookheimer said. “This particular individual actually had a financial stake in alternatives to vaccines. So he later lost his medical license, but unfortunately, that story got out. Now, nevertheless, it’s been studied in great detail. And no study has come out showing a link between autism and vaccines despite a lot of sincere work trying to find a relationship.”
Mother of Jordan Futoran (‘32), Dr. Dana Futoran is a child and adolescent psychiatrist. After spending a decade as the medical director of an adolescent psychiatric hospital, Futoran now works at a teen residential program — working with many patients on the autism spectrum. Futoran said that fears of vaccinations have led to increased diagnoses of avoidable diseases such as measles.
Many of Futoran’s patients’ families have searched for treatments for their children’s autism, which she said has led to some unorthodox and potentially harmful requests, including leucovorin — a treatment recommended by the Trump administration — and iron chelation treatment, neither of which Futoran was familiar with before they were suggested.
“Families are desperate to find something — some cause or some treatment. It’s scary because we just don’t know what the cause of autism is yet. We know it’s complex. There’s a lot of different genes that have been identified as possibilities. So there’s not just one gene or one cause,” Futoran said. “There could be some environmental factors, but we don’t know yet. It’s a big unknown.”
Earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to find the cause of autism by September. In this speech, Kennedy asserted that there must be an “environmental toxin” causing autism, citing increasing autism diagnoses to support his point.
“This is a preventable disease. We know it’s an environmental exposure. It has to be,” Kennedy said in a news conference. “Genes do not cause epidemics.”
This speech quickly garnered anger. Above all, much of Kennedy’s terminology proved controversial. Futoran and Bookheimer agreed that “epidemic” implies that the rates have increased drastically, when in actuality, the criteria to qualify for autism have become a lot looser. For example, Futoran said a diagnosis used to include a significant speech delay and more “severe” disabilities. Now, autism is viewed as a “spectrum,” with some autistic people possessing visible symptoms while others have a milder experience.
“The rates of diagnosis have increased drastically because we are now broadening our definition and it’s no longer limited to that rather small subset of individuals who have autism as we would have described it 50 years ago,” Bookheimer said. “It’s incorrect to call it an epidemic as if something is spreading.”
About five months after Kennedy’s pledge, the aforementioned Tylenol announcement was made. Bookheimer said that several studies have looked into this topic, but only one found Tylenol to have a “very small effect” on autism. Futoran expressed concern that this claim may lead pregnant people to hesitate before taking Tylenol when experiencing symptoms such as a high fever, which is often tied to other ailments, such as infections, that have been associated with a higher likelihood of an autism diagnosis.
“All of the scientific studies that I personally have looked at have shown no causal link. There has been a potential association in some studies that women who used Tylenol frequently or just in high doses may have had an increased risk of having a child with autism, but that doesn’t mean the Tylenol caused it,” Futoran said. “Association is not causation. The women that were more likely to take the Tylenol may have had an autoimmune disease or some infection or a fever that may have been linked to autism.”
Bookheimer noted that a “cure” is likely not possible — at least anytime soon. She stated that autism cannot be cured because, despite Kennedy’s words, it is not a “disease.” She hopes that one day there can be treatments to help those on the autism spectrum with issues such as sensory over-responsivity, which she studied during her time at UCLA.
The Oracle sent a survey on autism misinformation to Archer’s 501 students, garnering 119 responses. One of the survey questions required respondents to grapple with the potential of a cure, to which 51.3% of respondents strongly or slightly disagreed with the idea that one was possible.
“While it would be great if we could take away the struggles that autistic people have, it is impossible. As a society, we should have stopped viewing autism as something so incredibly awful. It is not,” a respondent wrote. “Our world needs to change to help autistic people. We cannot and should not attempt to fix them.”
As noted by Learning Specialist Danit Kaya, about 20% of the Archer student body identifies as neurodiverse, a population that Learning Specialist Stephanie Wald said risks feeling ostracized or ashamed of their identity when misinformation rises.
“It might make students feel othered or feel like something was done to cause who they are. They just are who they are because of how they were born, and there isn’t a vaccine or Tylenol being used that caused it, and there have been many studies that have disproved that,” Wald said. “Somebody saying that [a student’s diagnosis was caused by vaccines or Tylenol] doesn’t make it true.”
Freshman Lucy Dinerstein is the leader of the Neurodiverse Student Club. She said that seeing misinformation being spread by the current administration is upsetting, especially because it feels like progress is being reversed.
“It’s putting such a negative connotation on something that already had such a negative connotation, and it’s just supporting the stigma,” Dinerstein said. “When I’m an adult, I want to work in the [Department] of Education. I want to get more accommodations towards neurodivergent students, but Trump wants to get rid of the [Department] of Education. We have differences in our brains, so we can come up with thoughts and ideas that other people can’t. Trump’s administration is just not fostering that, and it’s not lifting neurodivergency up; it is bringing it down so much.”
To support autistic people and combat falsehoods, Dinerstein suggests consuming media that centers autistic voices, such as “Atypical” and “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.” She also said she and the Neurodiverse Student Club plan on presenting to the student body to help educate them on important topics, such as misinformation. Bookheimer said that one of the best ways to be allies to the autistic community is to seek to understand and appreciate everyone’s differences.
“Making simple accommodations in classrooms and in other situations would make everyday life easier,” Bookheimer said. “Learning how to include people who are different would be a great thing for all of us to be able to do and to learn how to not just other people. Accept them into your social world, even with the knowledge that they may interact differently — but what’s wrong with that?”
Correction Statement (Nov. 17, 2025, 5:57 p.m.): A previous version of this article stated that high fever during pregnancy has been linked to autism. The article has been edited to clarify that a high fever itself is not what is linked to autism, but rather the cause of said fever is likely the culprit.
