Before I was one of President Donald Trump's strongest supporters in Congress, I worked as an obstetrician in Texas. I spent years caring for pregnant women and new mothers, helping families through some of the most joyous and most challenging moments of their lives.
With these experiences in mind, I was concerned when the president recently described Tylenol (acetaminophen) as "no good," urging pregnant women to avoid taking it and claiming it raised the risk of autism. Additionally, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' recent suggestions that parents delay or otherwise alter childhood vaccinations physicians recommend are deeply worrying.
The studies used to support those claims don't hold up. There's been too much misinformation that simply adds to public health confusion. What's most important is to look at the facts.
When scientists in Sweden studied 2.5 million births of siblings -- one exposed to Tylenol in utero, the other not -- they found no difference in autism rates. A more recent Japanese study including more than 200,000 children also found no link between autism and the mother's use of Tylenol while pregnant.
The truth is simple: No study has ever shown a causal link between acetaminophen and autism. If the Department of Health and Human Services becomes aware of any definitive studies on this topic, this new information should immediately be made available in a transparent manner. Pregnant mothers deserve access to relevant science on a timely basis.
They don't deserve unfounded recommendations.
As both a doctor and former legislative leader in health care policy, I know that delaying vaccinations won't make children or babies safer, but it will make them vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illnesses.
The recommended childhood vaccination schedule is designed to protect infants during their most fragile months, when diseases like whooping cough can be deadly. Combined vaccines are tested for safety individually and when administered together. Spacing them out or giving them one-by-one only increases the window of risk while offering no medical benefit. It also increases the number of shots required to provide protection.
Undermining trust or making false claims about the childhood vaccination schedule will undo decades of progress in American health. We are already feeling the effects: the largest measles outbreak in decades and rising cases of whooping cough. Both have led to children's deaths.
Vaccines are among the most effective medical interventions ever developed. They have driven diseases that once killed thousands of children into obscurity. Polio used to paralyze and kill tens of thousands of American kids each year. Thanks to vaccines, the global eradication of polio is now within reach.
At the same time, this year, the United States recorded the most measles cases in 33 years, primarily in areas with low immunization rates. The juxtaposition of these disease trajectories shows that vaccines work -- and reminds us of much we have to lose if complacency and anti-vaccine rhetoric take hold.
To see Texas at the epicenter of the measles outbreak is especially painful for me. I've delivered more than 3,000 newborns there and represented Texans in the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 years. No child should suffer from diseases that modern medicine has already defeated. To have two Texas children this year die of measles is heartbreaking. And preventable.
If we want to improve America's health, as Trump sincerely does, we must deliver accurate information. So as a physician, let me be clear: Neither acetaminophen nor vaccines cause autism. Follow the advice of your doctors, who know you and your child best. Asking questions is smart, but allowing fear to supersede facts will not provide the health children deserve.
Dr. Michael C. Burgess was the U.S. Representative for Texas' 26th congressional district from 2003 to 2025, before which he practiced as a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology for more than two decades.