Assistant Professor Jeffrey Glennon cites Swedish study to highlight paracetamol has not been shown to cause autism

UCD School of Medicine’s Assistant Professor, (opens in a new window)Dr Jeffrey Glennon, provided a comment to Science Media Centre which has also been published in The Journal, as well as UK and international media, regarding Trump’s assertion that paracetamol use during pregnancy causes autism.

Dr Glennon stated this is incorrect and backed it up with a Swedish study published last year.

See more details below from the (opens in a new window)Science Media Centre piece:

Dr Jeffrey Glennon, Assistant Professor at University College Dublin School of Medicine / Conway Institute, said:

“Autism affects around 1 in 100 people in Ireland with autistic traits occurring in 1 in 65 people. There are media reports that use of paracetamol (also known as acetaminophen) during pregnancy may constitute a risk factor for autism spectrum traits. This is incorrect.

“A recent large scale (opens in a new window)landmark study by both Swedish and U.S. researchers in 186,000 people demonstrated no link between paracetamol use by expectant mothers and autism spectrum traits in their offspring. This study, led by Prof. Gardner and Prof. Lee was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Health and published in 2024. What makes this study convincing is the researchers examined registry data for 2.4 million Swedish-born children between 1995 and 2019. They then combined the prescription register and reports to midwives during pregnancy to study the nearly 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy. These children were compared with their own brothers and sisters in cases where the mother had not been treated with paracetamol when she was pregnant with them. They concluded that there was no evidence of a link between maternal paracetamol use and autistic traits.”

The Journal article can be found (opens in a new window)here.