In the four weeks after President Donald Trump and federal health agencies raised unfounded risks about using Tylenol (acetaminophen) during pregnancy, orders for the pain medication declined 10% in emergency departments, according to a new study.
At the same time, outpatient prescriptions for leucovorin, a drug approved for chemotherapy side effects that the Trump administration promoted as an autism treatment, increased 71%.
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, R.I., conducted the study. The study used Epic EHR data from U.S. healthcare facilities to examine acetaminophen orders in EDs for pregnant patients and new leucovorin prescriptions for children in outpatient settings.
For the acetaminophen analysis, the population was girls and women ages 15 to 44, or what the CDC defines as the typical reproductive age. The research compared medication orders for pregnant and non-pregnant patients in EDs between June 30 to Sept. 21, 2025, and Sept. 22 to Oct. 19, 2025.
During a Sept. 22 White House media briefing, President Trump and federal health agency leaders tied acetaminophen use during pregnancy to higher autism rates in children. The president also suggested leucovorin as an autism treatment. National healthcare organizations have said both claims are unfounded.
While acetaminophen orders for pregnant patients in EDs decreased 10% in the four weeks after the briefing, there was no significant difference for non-pregnant patients, the study found.
In conclusion, researchers said it is unclear what prompted the two prescription trends.
“Although causal claims cannot be made, the observed associations are consistent with [the] influence of new FDA recommendations on clinical decisions,” the researchers wrote. “It is unknown whether the results reported reflect changes in patient demand or clinician decision making; nonetheless, they show the apparent power that public authority figures have to drive sudden changes in health-care practices.”
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