A clear majority of Americans (69%) agree that “autism is a complex condition that can’t be reduced to a single cause,” according to a new Yahoo/YouGov poll.
That number includes 59% of Republicans.
Yet last week President Trump declared that his administration had “found an answer to autism” — then linked the neurological disorder to Tylenol and other acetaminophen-based pain relievers during a high-profile event with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Yahoo/YouGov poll was conducted from Sept. 25 to 29, shortly after the event.)
“Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it. Fight like hell not to take it,” the president told pregnant women. Instead, he urged them to “tough it out” when they experience pain.
At the same time, Kennedy continued to promote the thoroughly debunked claim that childhood vaccines cause autism, saying that there would be “no areas of taboo” in future research.
“One area we are closely examining is vaccines,” Kennedy said. “We will be uncompromising and relentless in our search for answers.”
“There’s something artificial,” Trump added. “They’re taking something.”
But while the new Yahoo/YouGov survey of 1,676 U.S. adults shows some openness to the idea that “autism rates are increasing mostly because of something that kids are being exposed to” — 41% say they agree, 31% say they disagree and 28% are unsure — most Americans do not accept single-cause explanations for autism. For instance:
Only 17% agree that “vaccines cause autism”; 56% disagree and 26% are unsure
Only 15% agree that “Tylenol and other medications that contain acetaminophen cause autism”; 49% disagree and 36% are unsure
Just 3% “strongly” agree that Tylenol and other acetaminophen-based pain relievers cause autism
As a result, relatively few Americans (25%) say they would discourage pregnant women from taking Tylenol. Most say they would either encourage the practice (16%) or remain neutral (48%).
What does the science say?
A half-century of research shows that autism spectrum disorder is “a complex neurodevelopmental condition that arises from a constellation of genetic factors and environmental influences,” as Scientific American recently put it. Most public health officials attribute rising rates to a broader definition of the disorder — along with increased screening and awareness — rather than some sort of toxin.
Recent studies have come to conflicting conclusions about acetaminophen. In August, the journal BMC Environmental Health published a review of the existing research — including six studies on the association between prenatal acetaminophen use and the risk of ASD in children — that purported to find “strong evidence of a relationship” between the drug and the disorder.
The paper was coauthored by Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, the dean of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and it ultimately recommended “judicious acetaminophen use — lowest effective dose, shortest duration — under medical guidance, tailored to individual risk-benefit assessments.”
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration issued new, official guidance echoing that recommendation. “The precautionary principle may lead many to avoid using acetaminophen during pregnancy, especially since most low-grade fevers don’t require treatment,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in a statement. “It remains reasonable, however, for pregnant women to use acetaminophen in certain scenarios.”
Yet a large 2024 study, which looked at nearly 2.5 million people born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019, concluded that “acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism.”
Instead, as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said last week in a statement, “the conditions people use acetaminophen to treat during pregnancy are far more dangerous than any theoretical risks” from the medicine itself.
Do Americans trust medical advice from Trump and RFK Jr.?
During last week’s event, Trump did not provide any new evidence to back up his administration’s new recommendations.
“I always had very strong feelings about autism and how it happened and where it came from,” the president insisted. “We understood a lot more than a lot of people who studied it.”
Yet poll results suggest Americans are hesitant to take medical advice from Trump. A full 64% say they wouldn’t trust such advice “at all”; another 10% say they would trust it only “a little.” A mere 6% say they would trust the president’s medical advice “a great deal.”
Even half of Republicans (50%) say they would trust medical advice from Trump only a little or not at all.
Kennedy’s trust numbers are similar: 66% “not at all”; 12% “a little”; just 8% “a great deal.”
The administration’s recent pronouncements on Tylenol and autism also coincide with a negative shift in Kennedy’s favorable rating. In August, 40% of Americans viewed Kennedy favorably; 46% viewed him unfavorably. Today, those numbers are 36% and 49% respectively.
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The Yahoo survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,676 U.S. adults interviewed online from Sept. 25 to Sept. 29, 2025. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 election turnout and presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted to the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 3%.
