What America's changes on paracetamol and vaccines might mean for New Zealand

Explainer - Donald Trump claims paracetamol causes autism, while the US has also made several changes to vaccine access and research. What could it all mean for NZ?

US Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy Jr and President Donald Trump have made claims that the use of Tylenol during pregnancy is linked to autism in children.

New Zealand experts and medical regulators say that paracetamol is still considered safe for pregnant women and others to use.

Meanwhile, vaccination in New Zealand isn't dependent on American policy, but some of the changes and funding cuts to research could have a ripple effect here.

Here's what you need to know.

What claims has Donald Trump made about paracetamol?

Tylenol is the most common brand name in the US for acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol and marketed as Panadol in New Zealand.

Trump announced on Tuesday the US Food and Drug Administration would be notifying physicians that the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy "can be associated with a very increased risk of autism".

"Don't take Tylenol!" Trump said several times during the press conference on Tuesday.

Trump: With Tylenol, don't take it. Don't take it. And if you can't live, if your fever is so bad, you have to take one because there's no alternative to that, sadly. First question, what can you take instead? Actually, there's not an alternative to that

As you know, other of… pic.twitter.com/UeSiSO7RUk

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 22, 2025

Kennedy has also linked other childhood vaccines to autism in previous statements.

Trump and Kennedy's claims contradict decades of medical research.

Women's health chair for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Dr Scott White, told RNZ's Afternoons that he was pretty "shocked and dismayed" at the announcement.

"The evidence is really very clear - paracetamol in pregnancy is safe and there is no link with causing autism."

Autism researcher at the University of Otago and board member of Autism New Zealand, Joanne Dacombe, said the link of autism to vaccines "has been thoroughly refuted by many reputable scientific studies".

She called Trump and Kennedy's announcement "two highly unqualified people pushing Tylenol as an unsubstantiated cause that lacks full scientific rigour", and noted it did not produce any new scientific evidence.

"It overly simplifies the complex causes of autism which are mostly rooted in genetics."

Dr White said one factor in rising autism cases in recent years was a broadening of the diagnostic criteria and more awareness of the condition.

"There were some studies a while ago now that demonstrated an association between using paracetamol in pregnancy and autism and ADHD and those offspring... but what's been very clearly demonstrated in a very big Swedish study, over 2.5 million children involved in that study, that the association really doesn't hold up once you control for other factors that are also associated with autism in children."

The scientific journal Nature cites that Swedish study, between 1995 and 2019, which found a minimal difference in autism rates between children who had and had not been exposed to paracetamol during pregnancy, while a Japanese study of more than 200,000 children found no links.

"It's clear that there's no causative effect," Dr White said.

Autism New Zealand also put out a statement of concern about Trump's announcement, saying that "We call for responsible, evidence-based communication from political leaders, especially on health matters affecting vulnerable populations and pregnant people."

The Ministry of Health's chief science advisor Dr Ian Town said there were no changes planned to its advice on paracetamol use in Aotearoa.

Other painkillers such as ibuprofen and aspirin, known as NSAID drugs, were already generally not recommended during pregnancy due to known side effects, MedSafe said.

"The Ministry of Health's advice on the use of paracetamol in pregnancy has not changed," Dr Town said.

"Paracetamol continues to be the safest medicine to take in pregnancy if you require pain relief or treatment for fever."

Dr White said that any pregnant women who were worried about paracetamol should talk to a medical professional.

MedSafe's data sheet on paracetamol also said that women should seek medical advice before taking paracetamol in pregnancy, but also pushed back on claims it harmed unborn children.

"Paracetamol has been taken by a large number of pregnant women and women of childbearing age without any proven increase in the frequency of malformations or other direct or indirect harmful effects on the foetus having been observed," MedSafe stated.

Dr White said announcements like Trump's would not help the autistic community.

"What really worries me is that when we see statements like this it detracts from the real work we should be doing here, and the real work we should be doing is learning better how to support autistic people and how they navigate the challenges that they face in a neurotypical world.

"The more time we spend talking about nonsense like paracetamol, which is clearly not an issue, the less time we spend focusing on the things that really matter in supporting these people."

What else is happening in America with vaccines?

There have also been several broad announcements about vaccines and the future of their use in the US under Kennedy.

Kennedy was named the US Secretary of Health after Trump's re-election last year, and is responsible for overseeing everything from vaccines to Medicare to food safety. Kennedy has denied he is anti-vaccine, but he has repeatedly spread misinformation and false claims about them.

Kennedy fired the entire Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices in June, which gives vaccine advice to America's top public health agency, and replaced them with many prominent vaccine critics.

In their meeting last week, that committee made several decisions:

• It said obtaining a Covid-19 shot should be done in consultation with a medical professional "based on individual choice". It's still unclear if this means Americans could no longer get a vaccine at their local pharmacies. Two-thirds of Americans got the Covid-19 vaccine at a pharmacy or drug store, CDC figures show.
• By a single vote, the committee narrowly voted against calling for prescriptions for the Covid vaccine. The panel did vote to add language to vaccine information sheets that highlights "risks and uncertainties".
• Earlier this year, the US announced it would limit approval of Covid-19 vaccines to adults aged 65 and older, as well as younger individuals with underlying health conditions, and it would no longer recommend them for children and healthy pregnant women.
• The panel had a confusing debate over the childhood MMRV vaccine - measles, mumps and rubella, and varicella (also known as chicken pox), at first voting against recommending the combined MMRV shot for children aged four and under, but then the next day endorsing two separate jabs - a combined one for measles, mumps and rubella, and another for chicken pox. (In New Zealand, the MMR vaccine is widely used.)
• The panel was also considering recommending against immunising newborns for Hepatitis B, but held off on making a final decision.

There was confusion over some of the panel's actions, multiple American media outlets reported.

Calling the committee's actions "extraordinarily vague", Sean O'Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics told AFP that "this was like nothing I've ever seen."

"What it looked like to me was a lot of clear efforts to sow distrust in vaccines, to instil fear," he said.

Could all of this impact New Zealand's vaccine supplies?

Acting director of pharmaceuticals for Pharmac, Caroline De Luca, said policies here wouldn't change despite recent US decisions.

"There is currently no indication that vaccine policy changes in the United States will impact New Zealand's vaccine supply," she said.

"We continue to work with our contracted suppliers to understand any changes that may impact New Zealand in the future.

"Pharmac is responsible for deciding which vaccines are funded in New Zealand, and who is eligible. Unlike other medicines, we purchase and maintain a stock of all funded vaccines in New Zealand. This approach helps safeguard supply and ensures continuity of access for eligible New Zealanders."

Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris is the co-director of the University of Auckland's Global Vaccine Data Network.

She said it was "unlikely in the near term" that the US changes would have a major impact in New Zealand.

"Aotearoa sets its own vaccine policy and schedule through MedSafe, Te Whatu Ora and Pharmac.

"The recent US move to shift Covid shots to 'individual decision-making' is real, but it doesn't change NZ recommendations. If anything, it mainly creates a US patchwork by state, not a global standard."

De Luca said vaccines could be produced in different stages in multiple countries, and "this makes it challenging to determine the percentage of vaccines that are imported from the United States".

Some vaccines such as the M-M-R II measles, mumps and rubella vaccine were manufactured in the US, Petousis-Harris said.

"Most routine NZ products have European plants and multiple supply routes," she said.

"However, we are a very small market, which can be a disadvantage."

Health New Zealand has a full list of vaccines that are available here.

Children under 18 years get all immunisations on the National Immunisation Schedule free. There are no longer any vaccine mandates, and youth can still attend early childcare service or school if they have not been immunised.

"There are no plans to change the status of these vaccines in the New Zealand childhood immunisation schedule," Ministry of Health director of public health Dr Corina Grey said.

Dr Town of the Ministry of Health said all medicines were evaluated on a regular basis.

"The safety of all medicines continues to be monitored in New Zealand by MedSafe. We also continue to monitor emerging information about the safety and effectiveness of the products overseas.

"If you have concerns about any medicine, we encourage you to speak with trusted healthcare providers."

What about ongoing vaccine research?

Kennedy also cancelled around US$500 million (NZ$1b) in mRNA vaccine research earlier this year. The development of mRNA vaccines was a key part of Covid-19 vaccination efforts.

There's worries about how this will impact research in other countries including New Zealand.

"The recent decisions out of the US to cut funding for mRNA vaccine development represent a new low for the American medical and scientific community, one that risks undermining decades of progress in public health and infectious disease preparedness," Professor Kjesten Wiig said, co-director of the RNA Development Platform and director of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.

New Zealand does conduct its own vaccine research, and has the capacity to develop home-grown vaccines through the mRNA Platform, which has received $70m in government funding.

That programme has developed more than 500 different vaccines for everything from influenza to bovine viral diarrhoea produced by the Connor Laboratory, hosted at Victoria University.

"In the absence of US leadership, there is an unprecedented opportunity for countries like New Zealand to step up to ensure this breakthrough science continues to benefit people globally," Wiig said.

"The chaos in the US certainly complicates US funding or collaborations, but they don't stop NZ ethics/regulatory processes or local programmes," Petousis-Harris said.

Is vaccine hesitancy spreading?

Vaccination rates are dropping in the United States, and Dr White said statements like Trump's did not help.

"They've used that press conference opportunity today to spread the widely debunked myth that autism is caused by vaccination.

"Autism is clearly not caused by vaccination, it's one of the questions that we've studied the best in all public health... It's spreading lies and misinformation like that... that has contributed to reducing the rates of vaccination in our population."

There have been concerns about vaccine hesitancy growing here, with child vaccination "decline" rates rising from 5 percent before the Covid-19 pandemic to more than 10 percent now in many primary health organisation areas, according to Health NZ.

Dr Grey said rising rates of disease elsewhere could impact New Zealand.

"We live in a highly interconnected world and higher rates of vaccine preventable disease in other countries increase the chances of diseases being imported into New Zealand, which increases the risk of local outbreaks."

Petousis-Harris said New Zealand still remained vulnerable.

"In my opinion, we need to strengthen our strategies and actions substantially against what is an unprecedented pandemic of misinformation and the weaponisation of vaccine information. In this space, I believe we are more vulnerable."

Dr White said vaccination could even be key in preventing complications like autism.

"We are seeing across Australia, New Zealand and the United States an increase in vaccine preventable diseases and given that there is no risk of autism from vaccination, and there is a clear risk of autism from measles in young children and other neurodevelopmental complications of measles in young children, we should actually be using more vaccines, not less, to try and prevent neurodevelopmental diseases in children."

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