(The Hill) — President Donald Trump said his administration will make an autism announcement on Monday following a Wall Street Journal report that suggested officials would release information linking Tylenol to the condition in children.
“We’re going to have an announcement on autism on Monday,” Trump said during remarks from Mt. Vernon, the historic home of President George Washington for the American Cornerstone Institute.
“I think it’s gonna be a very important announcement. I think it’s gonna be one of the most important things that we will do,” he added.
Trump did not offer any further details about what would be announced.
Trump also said at the event that he would be presenting former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom award next week.
Trump, Carson and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have publicly made statements linking autism to vaccines and other medicines despite a lack of research to support their claims.
“So 30 years ago, we had, I’ve heard numbers of like one in 200,000, one in 100,000,” Trump, the then president-elect, told reporters at a press conference in December.
“And now I’m hearing numbers of one in 100. So something’s wrong. There’s something wrong. And we’re going to find out about it,” he added.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced last Thursday the agency would be funding a study on the idea that vaccines cause autism.
The research comes as multiple top CDC officials resigned from the agency citing a “weaponization of public health” as Kennedy and others have worked to alter the vaccine schedule for school aged children, pregnant women and senior adults.
During Trump’s Saturday remarks, he hit on a wide range of subjects, including the possibility of a third term and mentioned that he received a call from actor Tom Cruise.
Cruise rejected the president’s offer to bestow him with a prestigious Kennedy Center award last month after a host of artists cancelled scheduled shows following the Trump administration’s takeover of the venue.
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