There’s so much that’s been going on lately it’s hard to keep up! I’m going to try a new format to make it easier for you all to digest these updates while you’re experiencing a firehose of information from every which angle. Rather than giving you updates all at once on five things the Trump administration has been doing to attack our health and wellness, I’m going to share one thing every 1-2 days: shorter, faster reads shared more frequently. Let’s try it! Feel free to leave me a comment letting me know whether you prefer this format (or not) for the future.
But first, I’ll start with an action you can take – and should take asap!
TAKE ACTION!
During last month’s Senate hearing, Senator Wyden said he’d heard from thousands of doctors and scientists concerned by RFK Jr’s policies, and RFK Jr. responded, “I’ll put my mailbag against your mailbag any day.”
In response to this, the volunteer coalition Defend Public Health (of which I’m a part) has launched a campaign to fill Senator Wyden’s mailbag proclaiming we do NOT support RFK Jr. or his policies. Please send a simple postcard, help others to send cards, and spread the word! If at all possible cards should be mailed THIS WEEK, so the mailbags are already full during the American Public Health Association annual meeting the first week of November in Washington, DC. Run out to your nearest tourist shop or gas station and grab some postcards to drop in the mail asap!
OK. For the first update, I’m going to start with something you’ve surely heard about already, but might want more (reliable) information about:
1. Attacking Tylenol
Unless you’ve truly been living on a deserted island with no access to the internet, I’m sure you’ve already heard about RFK Jr.’s decision to connect Tylenol (the brand name for what we can acetaminophen in the US, and paracetamol in much of the rest of the world) to autism. On Sept 22, it was finally time for the big unveiling of RFK Jr.’s report following through on his promise that “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.“ This was always an absurd promise, because dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of extremely well-trained and experienced researchers have devoted their entire careers to better understanding the factors that contribute to neurodivergence on the autism spectrum. The idea that RFK Jr. could find the hidden link in 5 months never made sense. But once the promise was made he had to deliver something, and he did this with a big announcement that they had found the link to Tylenol. Are there studies that have shown some association between acetaminophen and autism? Yes. Is this research conclusive? Absolutely not. Nothing changed between now and 5 months ago to change that. And while Trump has taken it upon himself to instruct pregnant people not to take Tylenol—this, by the way, is a montage Jimmy Kimmel’s team made of real clips from a real speech, so you can watch the relevant content in 53 seconds instead of having to watch the entire hour and 5 minute mind-boggling press conference—TRUMP IS NOT A DOCTOR OF ANY KIND and you should not be taking medical advice from him. (Ditto for RFK Jr. by the way.) The reality is that when people are pregnant and in pain or with a fever, acetaminophen remains the most safe option—safer for the fetus than just toughing it out with a fever. At least this atrocious move by the Trump administration has spawned a thousand memes, which have given me a much-needed laugh. If you want a deeper and more serious dive into this issue, please see this exceptional post about it by Your Local Epidemiologist!