UK experts reacted with fury last night at Donald Trump's claim that taking paracetamol during pregnancy strongly increases the risk of autism.
The President insisted that pregnant women 'have a responsibility' to endure pain instead of taking the drug and should only do so if they 'can't tough it out' or have an extremely high fever.
But UK scientists stressed there is 'no robust evidence' of such a link and described suggestions to the contrary as 'fearmongering' that could put pregnant women at risk.
Mr Trump's remarks also 'risk stigmatising families who have autistic children as having brought it on themselves', they added.
Dr Monique Botha, associate professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University, said: 'There is no robust evidence or convincing studies to suggest there is any causal relationship [between paracetamol and autism] and any conclusions being drawn to the contrary are often motivated, under-evidenced, and unsupported by the most robust methods to answering this question.
