Ciara Reilly: Autism is not caused by paracetamol, vaccines or mothers — it's a natural neurotype

Conspiracy theories about autism persist, but the real issue is not 'causes' — it’s the systemic failure to support autistic people

Autism is not caused by a tablet taken to manage a fever or any other minor ailment — in fact, the real danger in pregnancy comes not from taking paracetamol, but from leaving a fever untreated.

Here we are again. Another headline built on politically motivated fiction, another baseless theory attempting to pin autism on something external, avoidable — and on something a mother supposedly did wrong. It has become the political distraction of choice.

Last week, it was TD Danny Healy-Rae and his whataboutery about vitamin deficiencies. 

This week, the culprit is paracetamol. The Trump administration has claimed taking it during pregnancy “causes” autism.

From the outset, let’s be clear: these men are wrong. There is no credible scientific evidence to support their claims. No reputable researcher has ever advanced them.

Such claims are not only false, they are cruel.

I carried my pregnancies with extreme caution. Every decision was scrutinised. I was almost puritanical in how I ate, drank, and lived. If I had needed paracetamol for pain or fever, I would have taken it under medical advice, because doctors across the world rightly recommend it as safe. In the end, I did not need to. But even if I had, it would not have made my child autistic.

My daughter is autistic because she was born with an autistic brain. Autism is a neurotype, not something acquired in childhood. It can run in families, just like height, eye colour, or hair type. 

It is not caused by a tablet taken to manage a fever or any other minor ailment — in fact, the real danger in pregnancy comes not from taking paracetamol, but from leaving a fever untreated, a basic truth missing from the reckless rhetoric of Washington.

This paracetamol theory is only the latest chapter in a long history of misogyny and blame dressed up as science. Before this it was vaccines. Before that it was the poisonous “refrigerator mother” theory, whereby childhood development is supposedly stunted by cold and unloving mothers.

Each myth keeps the same impulse alive: blame the mother. Today, it is paracetamol; last week it was vitamin deficiency; tomorrow it will be something else.

The politics of The Handmaid’s Tale are no longer creeping in at the edges, they are here with us. You blend the controlling beliefs of right-wing conservatism with the legislative agenda of an authoritarian government. Bingo.

Ciara Reilly: 'People seem desperate for any explanation other than the truth: autistic people have always been here. What has changed is not prevalence but recognition.'

It is this impulse Donald Trump appeals to when he taps into a long history of suspicion and scapegoating. For him it is a mere distraction tactic, diverting from discussion about guns in schools, Epstein lists, corruption scandals or broadcast censorship.

But Washington’s theatrics do not stop at America’s borders. These narratives bleed into parenting forums, WhatsApp groups, and TikTok feeds, planting seeds of doubt even among the educated and well-informed. 

The imprimatur of authority figures is powerful: people who pride themselves on being rational and informed will, after weeks of this noise, admit to flickers of doubt. That is the corrosive power of misinformation.

For families, this means the exhaustion of fending off tropes like “there wasn’t as much of it in my day”, or scrolling past the ramblings of a relative on Facebook who is “just asking questions”. 

People seem desperate for any explanation other than the truth: autistic people have always been here. What has changed is not prevalence but recognition. Many of us are first-generation acceptors of what we know to be true — that the autism we now recognise in our children is also in other family members, diagnosed or not. 

We are navigating new worlds of understanding and helping entire families and communities to embrace neurodivergence.

I hesitated to write this piece at all. Confronting these claims so often sparks a so-called debate. But on this subject there is no debate, only fact and falsehood. To frame conspiracy theories as one side of a conversation is not balance. It is harm. Giving a platform to pseudoscience and setting it opposite lived experience is not public service. It is exploitation.

The problem is not only misinformation: it is morality. Searching for a “cause” is to treat autism as some kind of tragedy, failure or mistake. But autism is none of those things. It is not a disease, or a punishment, or the result of negligence or poor decisions.

Autism is a way of being human. It is a natural variation that has always existed, and always will.

We do not shame families for other genetic legacies. No one blames a parent if a child inherits their baldness, left-handedness, or a tendency to high blood pressure. Yet autism still provokes suspicion, whispers, and blame.

Ciara Reilly's daughter Doireann Reilly.

Why? Because recognising the truth of autism requires many in power to challenge their own systems. If more children are autistic, schools must provide smaller classes, sensory supports, and more teachers and additional needs assistants. 

If more adults are autistic, workplaces must rethink rigid schedules, interview processes, and office cultures. If more people are autistic, communities must accept difference as fact, not inconvenience.

It is easier to believe autism is a mistake than to face the truth that our systems were built for only certain kinds of people and must adapt. That is why baseless theories cling on, offering — as all conspiracy theories do — a comforting fiction: if autism is caused by something external, it can be prevented or eliminated. Responsibility shifts back onto mothers, families, and individuals, while society is let off the hook.

This obsession with ‘blame’ carries a heavy cost. For autistic people, it sends a corrosive message: you are a problem to be solved. Your very existence is the result of something gone wrong. It erodes dignity and undermines the right to be accepted without apology. For parents, it piles shame on top of an already demanding role.

This is not harmless speculation. It is harm dressed up as debate. And it distracts from what actually matters. If we are to talk about autism (and let's do that!), let’s talk about the real issues. The years-long waiting lists for diagnosis. The schools stretched to breaking point. The children who can't even get in the door of these schools. The parents burning out for lack of support. The autistic adults navigating workplaces and communities never designed with them in mind.

That is the conversation worth having. Not what “causes” autism, but how we respond to it with compassion, fairness, and responsibility.

Imagine if every column inch and broadcast minute wasted on conspiracy theories were spent instead on building inclusive classrooms, accessible workplaces, and welcoming communities. Imagine the difference it would make.

My child is not the outcome of something I did or failed to do. She is autistic because that is who she is. I will not allow that truth, her personhood and identity, to be dragged into a false debate. My child deserves better. Autistic people deserve better. Some things are not up for debate.

• Ciara Reilly is a primary school teacher and mother