The disgraced UK doctor behind autism misinformation

被丑闻缠身的英国医生,背后散播自闭症虚假信息

The Global Story

2025-09-26

26 分钟
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On Monday President Trump and the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press conference in which they made extraordinary new claims about autism. They suggested a potential link between the use of Tylenol during pregnancy and the development of autism. They also advocated spacing out childhood vaccinations. The two men's interest in the link between vaccines and autism goes back decades but these claims did not originate in the US. They trace back to the UK in 1998, when disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield first published his now-debunked theory linking MMR vaccines to autism cases in children. Today on the Global Story science journalist Adam Rutherford explains how the Wakefield vaccine conspiracy became the biggest medical disinformation disaster in recent history, and how these ideas found fertile ground in the Trump administration. Producers: Viv Jones, Valerio Esposito Executive producer: Annie Brown, James Shield Mix: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins Image: President Donald Trump, in front of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., delivers remarks linking autism to childhood vaccines and to the use of popular pain medication Tylenol for pregnant women and children, claims which are not backed by decades of science, at the White House. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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  • This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

  • If you've got kids, or you're thinking about having kids, or you know people with kids,

  • basically if you're most people,

  • there's a story that's probably come up over and over again this week.

  • So taking tile and all is not good.

  • I'll say it.

  • It's not good.

  • In an extraordinary press conference on Monday, standing next to his health secretary,

  • RFK Jr., The US president shared unproven claims about the relationship between Tylenol and autism.

  • Tylenol during pregnancy can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.

  • Doctors say Tylenol, which is known as acetaminophen or paracetamol in Europe,

  • is the safest drug for pregnant women to take for fever and pain.

  • and that not treating a fever can be dangerous for both the mother and the baby.

  • And by the way,

  • I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills that have no autism.

  • And while the Tylenol bit has dominated the headlines,

  • Trump has reiterated another thoroughly disproved theory.

  • The MMR, I think, should be taken separately.

  • This is based on what I feel, the mumps, measles.

  • and the three should be taken separately.