The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Swiss medicines regulator responds to Trump’s paracetamol claim

Swiss Medicines Agency contradicts Donald Trump
No scientific evidence has emerged that shows a link between the use of paracetamol during pregnancy and autism in children, Swissmedic says. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss medicines regulator Swissmedic says the risk-benefit ratio of taking paracetamol during pregnancy remains positive, after United States President Donald Trump claimed the medicinal ingredient causes autism.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Swissmedic takes note of the fact that the US government considers a connection between the use of paracetamol during pregnancy and the occurrence of autism in children to be possible, Swissmedic said in a statementExternal link published on its website.

Several medicinal products containing the active ingredient paracetamol have been available in Switzerland for many years, including during pregnancy if necessary.

More

Swissmedic emphasises that in the many years since the first authorisation was issued, no scientific evidence has emerged that shows a link between the use of paracetamol during pregnancy and autism in children. According to Swissmedic, this assessment is in line with the evaluations of other medicine regulators worldwide and the opinions of the medical community.

On Monday, Trump blamed the active ingredient paracetamol for autism. The US president said that taking the drug during pregnancy could be associated with “a greatly increased risk of autism”. Trump also claimed that there was “no reason” to vaccinate newborns against the highly contagious infectious disease hepatitis B.

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content

Popular Stories

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR