ROCKVILLE, Md. (DC News Now) The Trump administration’s announcement linking autism spectrum disorder to Tylenol use in pregnant women is receiving major backlash.

Autism advocates and parents with children who have autism are calling the announcement irresponsible. They worry the announcement will further stigmatize those with autism.

“My first reaction when I read it was, to be honest, this is a little bit crass as well,” Shoshanna Schechter said. “This is a load of crap.”

Schechter has a 16-year-old daughter who is on the autism spectrum. She said she was appalled to hear the administration link autism with Tylenol use in pregnant women.

“When parents just hear a sound bite, they get scared to death,” Schechter said. “They get scared that, ‘oh my God, I’m pregnant right now and I just had a headache, and I took Tylenol on the way to work and now my child is going to be autistic.’”

The president, alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned pregnant women against using acetaminophen, which is the ingredient in Tylenol.

“With Tylenol, don’t take it,” President Donald Trump announced. “Don’t take it. If you can’t live if your fever is so bad, you have to take one because there’s no alternative to that. Sadly.”

Immediate Past President of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Dr. William Barbaresi, said that advice can have dangerous consequences.

“You have a high fever and you tough it out, your baby could be adversely affected because of a high fever,” Barbaresi said. “Fevers should be treated with acetaminophen.”

The Autism Society also questions the science behind the announcement. 

“We know that Autism isn’t caused by one thing,” Danielle Hall with Autism Society said. “It’s a complex mix of genetic and biological and environmental factors and being able to announce a single cause without rigorous science fuels stigma and harm to families.”

Schechter wants to make sure other mothers of children with Autism don’t feel like they are to blame.

“It’s also causing a lot of shame and blame,” Schechter said. “That’s what’s going on social media is you’re seeing a lot of mothers, and I’m going to mothers, because people who carry the child, who are saying to themselves, ‘well, if I hadn’t done this, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.’”

DC News Now reached out to Kenvue, the company that owns Tylenol, and a spokesperson said sound science shows acetaminophen does not cause autism and is instead the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women.