Former U.S. president Barack Obama said comments by Donald Trump linking paracetamol to autism are “violence against the truth” and risk discouraging pregnant women from using safe pain relief, according to the Guardian.
Speaking September 24 at London’s O2 Arena during an interview with historian David Olusoga, Obama said claims about paracetamol—sold as Tylenol in the United States—have been “continuously disproved” and “undermine public health … that can do harm to women,” the Guardian reported.
On September 22, Trump said, “Taking Tylenol is not good … All pregnant women should talk to their doctors about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant,” the Guardian reported. UK health secretary Wes Streeting urged women to ignore the comments, according to the Guardian.
Obama also described what he called a struggle between democratic progress and a populist movement seeking to return to “a very particular way of thinking about America, where ‘we, the people,’ is just some people, not all people,” the Guardian reported. He said progressives became “complacent” and “smug” in the 1990s and 2000s and now must defend their values.
Obama, on a European speaking tour that includes a stop in Dublin to receive the Freedom of Dublin, referred to Trump only as “my successor,” the Guardian reported.
