Leucovorin prescribing for children with autism rose after major media coverage of a young patient in February 2025.A White House announcement in September further accelerated prescribing despite limited evidence supporting autism benefits.The FDA later rejected the White House's autism claims, approving leucovorin only for an ultra-rare disorder.
Prescriptions for leucovorin for children with autism rose sharply after widespread media attention early in 2025, and again after a White House briefing last fall promoted unproven claims about the drug, an analysis of national electronic health record data showed.
After remaining stable for 2 years, leucovorin prescription rates climbed from a monthly average of 34.1 prescriptions per 100,000 encounters between January 2023 and January 2025 to 335.2 prescriptions per 100,000 encounters in August 2025, reported Joshua Rothman, MD, of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues.
In November 2025, rates surged again to 835.4 prescriptions per 100,000 encounters, more than 24 times higher than the 2023-2025 monthly mean, Rothman and co-authors noted in JAMA Network Open. Prescription rates plateaued in December 2025 and January 2026 but remained elevated.
