A September 2025 White House announcement on autism was associated with a 379% increase in Internet searches for leucovorin and 1,322% increase in searches combining acetaminophen with autism and/or pregnancy in the following 2 weeks, according to a cross-sectional study.
Investigators used the Google Trends Research Application Programming Interface to examine daily search rates from July 28 to October 10, 2025. They examined search activity before and 13 days after the September 22, 2025, White House press conference in which President Donald Trump and top health officials endorsed leucovorin, a generic drug formulated from folinic acid, for the treatment of autism and urged against acetaminophen use during pregnancy because of concerns about the risk of autism in children.
The analysis compared observed search rates from September 22 to October 5, 2025, with counterfactual expected rates forecast from preannouncement search trends using autoregressive integrated moving average models. The searches were expressed as a ratio of all Google searches per 10 million, and absolute search counts were estimated using a separate estimate of overall daily Google searches. Control queries included multivitamin, ibuprofen, and diphenhydramine.
During the 2 weeks following the announcement, searches for leucovorin and folinic acid or folate were a respective 379% and 53% higher than expected, representing an estimated 1.2 million and 561,000 additional searches.Multivitamin searches remained unchanged.
Searches suggesting purchasing interest in leucovorin, folinic acid, or folate rose 203% above expected levels, representing nearly 81,000 additional searches. Purchasing-interest searches for multivitamins did not change.
Searches for acetaminophen were 187% higher than expected, representing approximately 11.7 million additional searches. Searches combining acetaminophen with autism and/or pregnancy were 1,322% higher than expected, representing approximately 4.4 million additional searches.
Diphenhydramine searches did not increase following the announcement. Ibuprofen searches rose by 12% overall and by 215% when combined with autism and/or pregnancy terms, which lead study author Neeraj G. Patel, BA, of the Yale School of Medicine, and colleagues, wrote “may suggest product confusion or searches for alternative treatments for pain control.”
The study was limited to Google searches, did not assess searches using artificial intelligence chatbots or changes in actual product use, and examined only a 2-week period following the announcement, when the investigators expected consumer interest would be greatest. They wrote that longer-term effects need further research.
“Health leaders could consider how endorsements and warnings about medical products based on limited evidence may influence patients’ health decisions, and health care professionals could consider the influence of high-profile announcements on consumer health behavior when counseling patients,” wrote the study authors.
“[The research letter] provides a missing, if predictable, link between our team’s results and the press conference—that a boost in direct public interest likely drove the immediate change in prescribing behavior,” wrote Michael L. Barnett, MD, of the Department of Health Services Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health as well as the Department of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mass General Brigham as well as the Division of Health Services Research at Harvard Medical School, in an invited commentary. Their prior research using nationwide electronic health record data found that new outpatient leucovorin prescriptions among patients aged 5 to 17 years peaked at 113% above expected rates during the second week of their study period, which overlapped with the original research's study period.
The commentators wrote that “there apparently exists almost no lag between misinformation messaging and measurable changes in clinical practice.” They concluded that “[the study] show us the clear danger from high-level misinformation and the extensive cleanup work that will be necessary.”
Co–study author Reshma Ramachandran, MD, MPP, MHS, reported prior research funding from Arnold Ventures, The Greenwall Foundation, Public Citizen, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for work unrelated to the current study; consulting fees and honoraria for unrelated activities; consulting compensation from Roosevelt Institute and Debevoise & Plimpton; and volunteer board service with Doctors for America. Senior study author Joseph S. Ross, MD, MHS, reported research support from the FDA, Johnson & Johnson, the National Institutes of Health, The Greenwall Foundation, and Arnold Ventures unrelated to the current study. The study authors reported no other conflicts of interest. Commentators Michael L. Barnett, MD, MS, and Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, reported no conflicts of interest.
Source: JAMA Network Open, Invited Commentary
