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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Taking Tylenol is not good, all right? I'll say it. It's not good.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
That's President Trump last week linking the active ingredient in Tylenol to autism. If you're pregnant, he says, don't take it. And to be clear, there is no established causal link between acetaminophen and autism. And having the president of the United States go out and make a claim like that can just add to the real struggle of navigating pregnancy. There's a lot of information to take in. As a mother of three, I know. So we've called on Judette Louis to remind us all of some of the scientifically supported dos and don'ts. She's an obstetrician and the dean of Old Dominion University School of Medicine. Dr. Louis, welcome.
JUDETTE LOUIS: Thanks for having me.
RASCOE: Let's start with acetaminophen. Give us your characterization of President Trump's advice there and tell us if this notion is a new thing or if it's been around for a while.
LOUIS: Yes, acetaminophen is available over the counter because overall, it's been demonstrated to be safe for short-term use. The concerns about its link with autism or neurodevelopmental disabilities has been studied for more than two decades. So it's not a new concern. But the better-designed studies, the ones that accounted for family history and looking at siblings, found that there's no association.
RASCOE: And isn't acetaminophen also used to reduce fevers? Isn't that important during a pregnancy?
LOUIS: Absolutely. If the fever is high and in the first trimester, there's a higher chance of birth defects related to it. I think the mistake that people make is that they say, oh, there's a harm to the use of a medication, but they don't compare it to the harm of not treating the condition that you were using the medication for.
RASCOE: And let's talk about pain relief generally because pregnancy - I'm not even talking about childbirth - can be very uncomfortable. I mean, women can be in horrible, excruciating pain of the joints and the muscles. I mean, how do you tell your patients to deal with pain?
LOUIS: You can start with things such as massage and heat and, you know, different ointments that exist over the counter. But the reality is that if a woman has pain that needs to be treated, that Tylenol is accepted as the first-line treatment. We also know that there are risks to not treating pain because there are hormones that your body releases in response to pain. Not to mention, there's also the mental health component for the mothers. One of the concerns is that this announcement further plays into a societal push for women to just tough it out for their babies.
RASCOE: And so - and what about vaccines? What do people need to know about COVID vaccines during pregnancy? Because obviously, there's been some information coming from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy that has raised questions about that.
LOUIS: I am an obstetrician - high-risk obstetrician. I am a scientist, first and foremost. I believe science. And the data is very clear that when you are pregnant, if you get infected with a virus, you are more likely to have severe disease, whether we're talking about COVID or influenza. It's flu season. There's an associated risk with preterm birth with those conditions. And unfortunately, more likely to die from viral infection.
RASCOE: We spoke with Dr. Edwin Asturias after he was removed from the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and here's how that conversation ended.
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EDWIN ASTURIAS: What we can tell you as former ACIP members is that we, as well as many of your pediatricians, obstetricians, family providers and so forth, will be making sure that the public knows what is needed in terms of protection for themselves and their families.
RASCOE: Now, he did not say that people shouldn't trust the CDC, but that was in June, and a lot has happened since then. What's your take on official government guidance now in late September, and how should the public think about it?
LOUIS: The scientific community and the scientific organizations, we are very clear about our recommendations, and they're based on science. I think what's happening now is that the guidance coming out from these federal agencies has a different voice. I do think that some of the guidance now is infused by anecdotes, and that is swaying things more about why the recommendations are made. So...
RASCOE: Well, who should we - who should patients listen to? What do you tell your patients about where to seek guidance?
LOUIS: I would prefer that they listen to the scientists. I know American Academy of Pediatrics is making information available. For pregnancy, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. They all have patient-facing materials to help educate patients.
RASCOE: So you are speaking to us in your personal capacity. You're not speaking on behalf of Old Dominion University. But what do you tell your medical students?
LOUIS: There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there related to health and truly related to everything. And so I try to tell my medical students that a lot of patients want to be part of the decision-making, and they want to have a nonjudgmental conversation. And we have to equip our students to be able to have those conversations.
RASCOE: That's Judette Louis. She's a board-certified obstetrician who specializes in high-risk pregnancy. Dr. Louis, thank you so much.
LOUIS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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