The World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed remarks made on Monday by former U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, suggesting that paracetamol use in pregnancy may cause autism.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said on Tuesday that while some observational studies had raised questions, many others found no such link, and the overall evidence remained inconsistent.
“If there were a strong connection, it would have been seen consistently across multiple studies,” Jasarevic explained. He added that medicines during pregnancy should always be used cautiously and under medical supervision, especially in the first trimester.
Responding to journalists in Geneva, Jasarevic also rejected claims that routine childhood vaccines cause autism, stressing that WHO’s immunisation schedules are based on decades of research and have saved more than 150 million lives over the past 50 years.
In a related development, Kate O’Brien, Director of the Department of Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO, described vaccines as one of the most powerful tools in public health but warned that their future impact is threatened by misinformation.
“We are at a critical juncture. While vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives in the past 50 years, their impact for decades to come is increasingly threatened by another type of contagion: misinformation,” O’Brien said.
She noted that misinformation and disinformation spread faster than truth and risk reversing hard-won gains in global vaccine coverage and disease control.
According to O’Brien, vaccination campaigns have prevented millions of deaths and disabilities worldwide. She said over 18 million people who would have been paralysed by polio can walk today, more than 90 million children who would have died from measles are alive, and over a million deaths from cervical cancer have already been averted.
“Yet we are risking the erosion of decades of progress—not because we lack safe and effective vaccines, but because of misinformation. The consequences are not hypothetical; they are real and tragic,” she warned.
O’Brien pointed to recent deaths of unvaccinated children from measles and its complications, highlighting that vaccination rates in some countries have dropped to levels not seen in decades. In some communities, coverage is far below the 95 per cent threshold needed for herd immunity.
“This drop in coverage, particularly for measles, is driving a significant rise in cases and deaths—even in wealthy countries like the U.S., Canada, the UK and across Europe,” she added.
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