US President Donald Trump has attracted condemnation from health experts after he sought to claim there was a link between the widely used painkiller Tylenol and autism.
Accompanied by his Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump said doctors would soon be advised not to recommend the drug - called paracetamol in some other countries, including the UK - to pregnant women.
The claims have been attacked by medical experts. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said the announcement was unsettling and not based on reliable data, while the UK's National Autism Society called Trump's statement dangerous, it's anti-science and it's irresponsible.
BBC Verify has looked at some of the allegations Trump and Kennedy made during their news conference at the White House.
Is Trump correct that US autism diagnoses are rising?
During the event, Trump listed a number of statistics which he said showed autism diagnoses in the US have risen rapidly over the past two decades.
Firstly, the US president claimed that incidence has increased from around one in 10,000…probably 18 years ago to one in 31 by 2025.
The final statistic quoted by Trump - that autism rates have risen to one in 31 - is correct. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2022 found that level of diagnoses among eight-year-olds across 16 US states.
While that rate has grown from 18 years ago, it did not grow by anything like the figure cited by Trump. In 2006, the CDC estimated the rate of autism in the US to be one in 110. In 2008, it was one in 88. Most experts say rising rates of autism can primarily be attributed to changes in how the condition is diagnosed, greater recognition, and more testing.
Trump also claimed that California had a more severe problem with autism than other states surveyed by the CDC. The CDC estimated that in 2022, about one in 12 eight-year-old boys in California had autism - the highest rate for boys in the study across 16 US states.
However, the agency noted that the state has funded a local initiative, training hundreds of local pediatricians to screen and refer children for assessment as early as possible, which could result in higher identification of autism.
Should the MMR vaccine be taken separately?
Another claim made by Trump was around the effects of the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. He suggested that the vaccinations should be taken separately rather than as a combined shot and that it seems when you mix them, there could be a problem. Experts fear that if parents refrain from getting their children vaccinated as a result of his unfounded claims, it risks the re-emergence of diseases like measles.
The discredited idea that childhood vaccines are linked to autism gained attention after a paper by British doctor Andrew Wakefield was published in 1998. Wakefield was later found to have financial conflicts of interest and falsified results. Multiple studies since have found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
On its website, the US CDC recommends that two doses of the combined MMR vaccine are given to children, starting with the first dose at 12-15 months and the second between the ages of four and six.
Are autism rates lower among Amish people?
Trump cited the Amish as a group within the US who have virtually no autism within their community. However, there are relatively few studies on autism rates within the Amish community, leading experts to question the validity of his claims.
Trump's assertions on autism are part of a long narrative, having expressed concern over rising rates of autism in US children for almost 20 years. While he has alternated between promoting and undermining vaccination campaigns, his recent statements have reignited public health discussions.
