Trump’s “Cure” for Autism Is Nothing New: It’s Recycled Eugenics

By Michelle Labine, PhD

 September 2025

President Donald Trump has declared that he has “found an answer” to autism. He has linked autism to women taking Tylenol during pregnancy and promoted leucovorin as a possible treatment. He is presenting this as groundbreaking news, as if his administration has uncovered the great medical mystery of our time.

But this is not new. It is not groundbreaking. It is recycled. And autistic people, especially autistic women, have heard this before.

The Old Story, Dressed as New

Trump is not the first to promise a cure. For more than a century, leaders, doctors, and policymakers have framed autism and other developmental differences as problems to be eradicated.

Back then the “cures” included institutionalization, sterilization, and extermination. Under Aktion T4 in Nazi Germany, autistic and disabled people were murdered in the name of “mercy.” In North America, families were pressured to hide children away, and governments sterilized disabled women without consent.

Trump’s rhetoric may wear modern clothes, but it carries the same DNA as those earlier eugenic campaigns: autistic lives framed as tragedies, mothers blamed for producing “defective” children, and society promised salvation if only we can eliminate difference.

A Century of Recycled “Cures”

The idea of curing or preventing autism is not new. It has been recycled, again and again, under different names:

• 1910s–1930s: Eugenics movements across the U.S. and Europe push forced sterilization of disabled people to “improve” society.
• 1940s–1950s: Under Aktion T4, autistic and disabled people in Nazi Germany are systematically murdered.
• 1960s–1970s: Institutionalization is framed as the best way to “manage” autistic children, cutting them off from families and community.
• 1980s–1990s: “Refrigerator mothers” are blamed for autism, reinforcing stigma that mothers cause their children’s neurology.
• 2000s: The false vaccine-autism link sparks global panic, fueling stigma and diverting resources from real support.
• 2010s–2020s: Acetaminophen and other “causes” are floated, despite inconclusive evidence, continuing the pattern of maternal blame.
• Today: Trump declares he has found “the answer,” recycling the same deficit-based script of cure, blame, and erasure.

The story never changes. Only the packaging does.

The Gendered Violence of Blame

Notice, too, where the finger points: at women. Trump’s claim that autism stems from Tylenol in pregnancy continues the age-old practice of policing women’s bodies. It positions mothers as the source of disability, guilty for their children’s neurology.

Meanwhile, autistic women ourselves have been systematically excluded from the story. For decades, we were overlooked in research, misdiagnosed, and told we didn’t exist. Many of us found answers only in adulthood, after years of masking and trauma.

To erase us from the data, then blame us for autism’s very existence, is a double violence. We are silenced, then scapegoated.

Fact-Checking Trump’s Numbers

Trump’s announcement leaned on alarming statistics about autism’s supposed “explosion.” But his numbers are inaccurate and stripped of context.

• Exaggerated baseline: He claimed that 20 years ago autism was “1 in 10,000.” In fact, CDC data from 2000 put prevalence at 1 in 150 among 8-year-olds not 1 in 10,000.
• Diagnosis ≠ incidence: The rise in prevalence reflects better recognition, broader criteria, and earlier screening not an epidemic of new cases.
• Cherry-picking: Comparing different studies with different definitions inflates fear rather than clarifies truth.
• Erased nuance: Without context, numbers become weapons used to justify cure rhetoric and fuel stigma.

Autistic people have always been here. What’s changed is our visibility, especially for those historically overlooked: women, nonbinary people, and people of colour. The so-called “epidemic” is recognition, not contagion.

What Autistic People Actually Need

Autistic people are not asking for cures. We are demanding:

• Safety from violence and eugenics that threatens our lives.
• Respect for our differences and our identities.
• Support systems inclusive schools, accessible healthcare, workplaces that value neurodivergent innovation.
• Representation especially autistic women, nonbinary people, and people of colour in research and policy conversations that shape our futures.

We don’t need recycled pseudoscience. We need recognition, rights, and resources.

My Refusal

As an autistic woman, I name this for what it is: recycled eugenics, not discovery. Trump’s “cure” is not new science it is an old story with a new headline.

And history has shown us where this story leads. Eugenics has never been about healing; it has always ended in violence, erasure, and death.

I refuse to be cast as a tragedy. I refuse to let mothers be blamed for our existence. I refuse to let a century-old script of eugenics masquerade as progress.

Autism is not a disease. It is not an epidemic. It is not a mistake.

Autism is human diversity. And autistic women will not let recycled myths decide whether we get to exist.