\n<\/p>\n
Nigel Farage has refused to criticise Donald Trump\u2019s claims that paracetamol, sold in the US as Tylenol, could cause autism, saying \u201cscience is never settled\u201d and he would never \u201cside with\u201d medical experts.<\/p>\n
The Reform UK leader said he had \u201cno idea\u201d if the US president was right to tell pregnant women to avoid taking acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol and paracetamol, and suggesting that those who could not \u201ctough it out\u201d should limit their intake.<\/p>\n
Scientists and global health agencies including the World Health Organization have strongly dismissed Trump\u2019s false claims, calling them misguided and saying the evidence linking paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism is \u201cinconsistent\u201d.<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s health secretary, Wes Streeting, told the British public they should not \u201cpay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine\u201d, adding: \u201cI trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in a wide-ranging interview with LBC\u2019s Nick Ferrari, Farage was asked directly if Trump was right to share the unproven claims. He said: \u201cI have no idea, I\u2019ve no idea. You know we were told thalidomide was a very safe drug and it wasn\u2019t. Who knows Nick, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [Trump] has a particular thing about autism. I think because there\u2019s been some in his family, he feels it very personally. I\u2019ve no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Farage was asked if he would side with medical experts who say it is dangerous to make the link, he added: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t. I wouldn\u2019t. When it comes to science, I don\u2019t side with anybody, right? You know? I don\u2019t side with anybody, because science is never settled. We should remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet when challenged over whether it was irresponsible for Trump to make such an unproven claim, Farage said: \u201cThat\u2019s an opinion he\u2019s [Trump\u2019s] got. It\u2019s not one that I necessarily share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farage\u2019s refusal to condemn Trump\u2019s claims comes weeks after a controversial doctor, Aseem Malhotra, was given top billing at Reform UK\u2019s party conference and used his main-stage speech to claim that the Covid vaccine had caused cancer in the royal family. Malhotra is an adviser to Trump\u2019s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy.<\/p>\n
In the LBC interview, Farage said Trump was \u201cright to say\u201d that sharia law \u201cis an issue in London\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever take what he [Trump] says literally, ever on anything. But always take everything he says seriously,\u201d Farage said, adding that Trump \u201chas a point\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo is he right to say that sharia is an issue in London? Yes. Is it an overwhelming issue at this stage? No. Has the mayor of London directly linked himself to it? No.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to reprimand Trump\u2019s administration after the US president falsely claimed in a speech to the UN: \u201cI look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it\u2019s been changed, it\u2019s been so changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Trump has been publicly attacking the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, since 2015 when the Labour politician criticised Trump, then a presidential candidate, for suggesting that Muslims should be banned from travelling to the US.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Khan said: \u201cWe are not going to dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response. London is the greatest city in the world, safer than major US cities and we\u2019re delighted to welcome the record number of US citizens moving here.\u201d<\/p>\n During the LBC phone-in, Farage also said Reform\u2019s plan to ban anyone who was not a UK citizen from claiming benefits would not apply to Ukrainians and Hongkongers.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, because they come for different reasons,\u201d Farage said, adding those who had lived in the UK on indefinite leave to remain and had not worked or paid into the system would be told their benefits would be cut.<\/p>\n The Royal Parks later rejected Farage\u2019s claims, also made in the interview, that eastern European migrants were taking swans and carp from ponds across the UK to eat.<\/p>\n A spokesperson said: \u201cWe\u2019ve not had any incidents reported to us of people killing or eating swans in London\u2019s eight royal parks. Our wildlife officers work closely with the Swan Sanctuary to ensure the welfare of the swans across the parks.\u201d<\/p>\n Farage was asked about Trump\u2019s unfounded claim last year that Haitian immigrants in the US were eating cats and dogs, which he did not accept was unproven. Instead he steered the conversation to discuss swans and carp allegedly being taken from UK waters.<\/p>\n The Reform leader said \u201cpeople who come from countries where it\u2019s quite acceptable to do so\u201d were taking the carp and swans. Asked if it was eastern Europeans, he said: \u201cSo I believe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nigel Farage has refused to criticise Donald Trump\u2019s claims that paracetamol, sold in the US as Tylenol, could cause autism, saying \u201cscience is never settled\u201d and he would never \u201cside with\u201d medical experts. The Reform UK leader said he had \u201cno idea\u201d if the US president was right to tell pregnant women to avoid taking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[5814,1891,8686,14318,320,3132,3131,1789,9126,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-23466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-claims","10":"tag-criticise","11":"tag-dismissing","12":"tag-experts","13":"tag-farage","14":"tag-nigel","15":"tag-paracetamol","16":"tag-refuses","17":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}