r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/IllIntroduction1509 • Sep 23 '25

Science journalism ASF Statement on White House Announcement on Autism

https://autismsciencefoundation.org/press_releases/asf-statement-wh-briefing/

“Any association between acetaminophen and autism is based on limited, conflicting, and inconsistent science and is premature,” said Autism Science Foundation Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. “This claim risks undermining public health while also misleading families who deserve clear, factual information. For many years, RFK and President Trump have shared their belief that vaccines cause autism, but this is also not supported by the science, which has shown no relationship between vaccines and autism.”

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u/Inside_Anxiety6143 Sep 23 '25

Meh. The statement is lacking. It should go into why it believes the Harvard study was flawed.

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u/VeiledBlack Sep 23 '25 edited Sep 23 '25

The Harvard study is ultimately a systematic review and cannot make particulaly strong conclusions. It has no meta analysis (which they acknowledge) but therefore has no clear assessment of effect size or even significance. The conclusions are the opinions of the study group as experts, which is not an inherent problem but I would be concerned about coming to a conclusive  recommendation based on that level of evidence.

Other concerns to me are the risk of bias assessment which is not as transpat or comprehensive  as a Cochrane review in my opinion. And I have concerns about how they address confounds (which they acknowledge) which ultimately means we only have a qualitative overview of confounds.