The Trump administration may have linked prenatal use of acetaminophen to increased rates of autism in children, but Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told Newsmax that he doesn't want to "jump to any conclusions" because there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.
"When you have research, remember there's a lot of confounding factors," McCormick said Tuesday on "Wake Up America." "Tylenol has been around for a long time in medicine. We use it usually as an antipyretic. In other words, something to treat fever. Not so much pain, but fever."
He added: "When you do that, that means that you actually have to deal with the fact that some mothers are sick from something. That's what's causing their fever. Maybe that's the cause of autism. … The question is also, are we just having better reporting of signs and symptoms of autism? And now we diagnosis it more often?"
He then questioned what would be used in place of such fever reducers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
"So there's a lot of confounding factors that may lead us to the wrong conclusion," McCormick continued. "We have to be very careful because if we don't treat fever with Tylenol, and we can't use NSAIDs such as Motrin or Aleve or other medications for fever, then what are we going to do for women who have fever? Because, certainly, fever is not good for a person, especially when they're pregnant. So we have a lot of questions to be answered. I don't want to jump to any conclusions yet."
McCormick, who is a physician, said that if Tylenol is taken off the table to reduce fever, then doctors are left with using Motrin or any of the other NSAID drugs, which can cause "bleeding issues" in pregnant women and other issues in very young children.
Switching gears, the Georgia Republican added that he didn't think federal lawmakers would ultimately reach a deal to keep the government funded by the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline.
"When you talk about a deal, no, I don't, because, quite frankly, this is a Democratic bill to begin with," McCormick said. "The [continuing resolution] is a continuation of [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi[, D-Calif.,] spending levels. It's so ironic to me that you have the Freedom Caucus on one side saying we're going to do a continued resolution and the Democrats talking about shutting down the government because of a CR that's from them. This is a crazy time in politics."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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