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# Just how personal is the autism issue to ‘Dr’ Trump?
- URL: https://www.europeans.today/2025/09/26/just-how-personal-is-the-autism-issue-to-dr-trump/
- Published: 2025-09-26T00:10:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-09-28T17:01:31.000Z
- Description: Trump has long voiced concerns linking autism to vaccines and paracetamol, despite lacking medical expertise, prompting criticism that his rhetoric reflects ego, pseudoscience and a refusal to confront genetics.
- Author: Rashmee Roshan Lall
- Tags: COMMENT, Eugenics, Autism, Donald Trump, Trump 2.0, Health, United States, Vaccines, Acetaminophen, Paracetamol, Misinformation, Disinformation

A s he delivered a passionate appeal about autism and the supposed dangers of paracetamol to pregnant women, Donald Trump [said](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/autism-vaccines-trump-personal.html?ref=europeans.today) he “always had very strong feelings about autism”. 

How long is “always”?

And just how “strong”?

More to the point, why?

As regards the timeline, Mr Trump himself has said he’s been waiting 20 years for a chance to sound the alarm on autism.

Certainly, reports record Mr Trump displaying some interest in autism at least [from December 2007](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj07e3rjev2o?ref=europeans.today). Then, he hosted leading members of Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy group at Mar-a-Lago. It’s not clear if he was doing it as a favour to *NBC* former chairman Bob Wright, whose grandchild had autism. At the time, Mr Trump was hosting an *NBC* show *‘The Apprentice’* and it may have seemed politic to pay attention to Autism Speaks, which Mr Wright had founded.

Even so, a senior member of Autism Speaks who attended the Mar-a-Lago brunch, says even then, Mr Trump displayed decided concerns around vaccines and an interest in autism. Alison Singer, then executive vice president of the advocacy group, [told *The New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/autism-vaccines-trump-personal.html?ref=europeans.today) that both Mr and Mrs Trump were at the brunch, along with their son Barron, a mere infant at the time. “Melania was carrying Barron, he was a baby, and even at that time, Donald Trump did talk about his interest and concerns around vaccines. I do believe that he comes to the question of trying to find the cause of autism legitimately”.

That offers some sense of the hold the issue has on Mr Trump. Enough, in fact, for a non-medical US president to turn quack doctor in full view of a watching world, to spout contested medical advice about vaccines and the analgesic and fever-relieving drug acetaminophen.

So here’s the question: Why ***does*** autism have such purchase on ‘Dr’ Trump?

*LBC*’s James O’Brien, one of Britain’s most cerebral and gifted broadcasters, mused [on his talk show](https://www.lbc.co.uk/videos/2JsScnu2dL2/?ref=europeans.today) on September 23 about [academic opinions on autism and eugenics](https://theconversation.com/uninformed-comments-on-autism-are-resonant-of-dangerous-ideas-about-eugenics-256762?ref=europeans.today). Mr O’Brien was speaking the day after Mr Trump’s passionate commentary on autism. The *LBC* host wondered if the desire to blame autism on a pain-relieving medicine (as well as the pregnant women who take it) was an exercise in egotism. 

Was it, in part, because a people who regard themselves as racially superior could not acknowledge the possibility of passing on genetic conditions such as autism?

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/15/40/1540bec0-7154-4feb-b8e1-97f579155b08/content/images/2021/09/end-flat-1.png) 

### **GOING FURTHER**

- ###### [For Trump, Who Has ‘Strong Feelings’ About Autism, the Issue Is Personal](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/autism-vaccines-trump-personal.html?ref=europeans.today) | THE NEW YORK TIMES
- ###### [Fact-checking claims Trump made about autism](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj07e3rjev2o?ref=europeans.today) | BBC NEWS
- ###### ['A confusing lie': James O'Brien on Trump linking paracetamol to autism](https://www.lbc.co.uk/videos/2JsScnu2dL2/?ref=europeans.today) | LBC

  
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#### **Sources:**

###### ▪ This piece was first published in [Medium](https://rashmee.medium.com/just-how-personal-is-the-autism-issue-to-dr-trump-c9830a831b24?ref=europeans.today) and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 26 September 2025 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

###### ▪ **Cover:** AI-GENERATED IMAGE.

  
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