Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not appear to know basic facts about female anatomy in his conspiracy-riddled Cabinet meeting appearance on Thursday afternoon.
Speaking about the reaction to his controversial claim that taking Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism, Kennedy delivered an anecdote from his time on the internet.
“Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant, an associate professor at Columbia University,” said the 71-year-old Secretary. “She was saying ‘F Trump’ and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta.”
Babies are not formed in a placenta. They are formed in a woman’s uterus. The placenta is an organ attached to the uterine wall that provides fetuses with nutrients and oxygen through the umbilical cord.
“The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome has now left the political landscape and is now a pathology,” concluded the aghast HHS Secretary.
Kennedy appeared to be referring to a video by Dr. Michelle Vu, a second-year fellow at Columbia University specializing in Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility. In the video, Vu says she’s 28 weeks pregnant and then takes some Tylenol, confidently saying her baby won’t have autism. Vu was one of several pregnant women who filmed themselves taking Tylenol as a show that they did not trust Kennedy’s medical advice.
The secretary’s mix-up of the uterus and placenta went viral on social media, as women and medical professionals joked through their frustration that the person in charge of health in America appeared so clueless about basic science and anatomy.
“With her baby in her placenta? How’d it get in there?” joked political columnist Erin Ryan.
Author Shannon Watts posted, “The Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is giving pregnant women medical advice, does not understand the difference between a uterus and a placenta.”
Somehow, the secretary’s gaffe was but one of many bonkers takes on Thursday afternoon. He also stated that children who were circumcised early have “double” the rate of autism, likely because they were given Tylenol.
Kennedy did not cite any research to back up that claim, but Trump said he himself “studied this a long time ago.”
Kennedy also claimed that Cuba has the lowest rate of acetaminophen use and has the lowest rate of autism (There is no proof that Cubans have a particularly low rate of autism, and the country’s doctors are prioritizing numerous treatments and studies on the condition).
He said that while this is “not proof” that acetaminophen use causes autism, the government is “doing studies to make the proof.”
