When Christina Collura’s son, Luca, was 3 years old, she received confirmation that her little boy was on the spectrum. “It was a bit of a shock in the sense of, ‘what now’? But my thought process automatically turned to not what he can’t do, but what he can do, and how we’re going to help him. And it’s going to be a beautiful journey,” shares Collura. That beautiful journey took a detour this week, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that pregnant women shouldn’t take Tylenol, linking acetaminophen to autism. Speaking to CTV National News, the mother of two shared her anger, “I’m literally shaking as I’m talking about it. It’s crazy to think we’re going to be creating stigmas against moms,” says Collura. She went on to share her fear that mothers are now going to be asked, “What did you do when you were pregnant? What did you do to cause your child to have autism?” The president of the Ontario Autism Coalition, Alina Cameron, who’s also an epidemiologist, believes the Trump administration’s claim is reckless and lacks merit. “My concern is that mothers are going to start blaming themselves, and that simply isn’t right,” says Cameron. Cameron’s 10-year-old daughter, Fiona, is also on the spectrum. “For lack of a better term, she is profoundly autistic, she has barriers to a lot of her day-to-day living, she’s mostly nonverbal.” The mother of three is quick to point out that she didn’t take Tylenol when she was pregnant, “I didn’t take any medication, so there was no Tylenol in the mix - and my daughter - she’s autistic. That’s anecdotal evidence, that’s one person, but we know from these large population studies that there’s no link,” says Cameron. In 2024, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) released a study following an investigation into “the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and children’s risk of autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability among nearly 2.5 million children in Sweden.” Analysis that didn’t include siblings found “marginally increased risks.” Analysis that did include siblings found “acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability...” according to the JAMA report. “When we looked at the studies closer and looked at siblings as an example, one that was exposed to Tylenol as a fetus and another that wasn’t, they found that there was no causation that way. So (ignoring sibling studies) is kind of like saying ice cream sales go up in the summer, and so does crime rates. So are they linked? Likely not,” says Ontario Pharmacists Association Vice-President Jen Belcher. For decades, acetaminophen has been labelled as one of the only safe painkillers for pregnant mothers to take. That remains true today, according to the Ontario Pharmacists Association. “It’s the most safe and effective pain reliever we have for pregnant women; it’s also used sometimes to reduce fever, which in pregnancy can be very dangerous to the fetus,” points out Belcher. As for Collura, she admits that the claims made by the Trump administration have weighed on her today. “Our main focus should be on the supports and the therapies, and supporting our children of all needs and abilities,” says Collura. The loving mother goes on to add that on days like this, she thinks back to a quote that she’s leaned on since her son was diagnosed. “Autism is a journey I never expected, but I sure do love my tour guide.”
