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Donald Trump caused shock among the global medical community last year when he told an Oval Office press conference that he had "found the answer to autism".

The US President claimed there was evidence paracetamol, branded as Tylenol in the US, could cause autism in children when taken by their pregnant mothers. Today a landmark scientific review published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal debunks that theory.

Laura Lacey, 46, and her teenage daughter Eva both have autism and were among many people dismayed when Donald Trump made headlines around the world with his unsupported claims about the cause of the neurological condition.

• Trump’s bizarre claim that paracetamol causes autism debunked - what you need to know

Laura has told the Mirror how 14-year-old Eva questioned her about taking paracetamol when she was pregnant with her. The data analyst from Newport, south Wales, says a “generation of mums” with autistic children have been wrongly blamed by President Trump.

She said: “It was ridiculous but it’s so hurtful. You live with guilt as a mum anyway. Eva wasn’t diagnosed until she was 12 and I would think, ‘should I have noticed things earlier and got her more support?’.

“Hearing these claims felt like a damaging attempt to place blame on mothers for neurodevelopmental conditions that are widely understood to have strong genetic links.

“What made this particularly upsetting was the impact it had on Eva herself. She was distressed and confused by the suggestion that something I did during pregnancy had ‘caused’ her autism. As a parent, it was heartbreaking to see unnecessary guilt and fear being created by these claims.”

The day after President Trump’s press conference - which he hailed as "one of the biggest announcements medically" in US history - Eva questioned her mum on the drive to school.

Laura said: “Eva was quite impressionable and she had seen something about it online on TikTok or Instagram.

“She just asked me if it was true and if I had taken paracetamol. She said it in a kind of flippant teenage way, but it was on her mind and she probably was thinking I was to blame.

“I did take paracetamol during my pregnancy, but my own mother - who never takes paracetamol at all - did not, and yet I still have the same diagnoses as Eva.

“We are lucky I was able to have that conversation with Eva. I explained that people with autism have been around a lot longer than paracetamol. Thankfully she did feel able to ask me and I was able to have that conversation. If she hadn’t she could have harboured this resentment.”

The new “gold standard” research published today analysed 43 of the highest quality studies containing over a million children and comparing pregnancies where the mother had taken paracetamol to those where they had not. It looked at a significant number of cases of siblings where paracetamol had been taken by the same mum during one pregnancy but not the other.

Scientists concluded that taking the common painkiller during pregnancy does not increase the risk of autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or intellectual disability among offspring.

Laura said: “We must remove this guilt from a generation of mums who’ve been told their child’s autism is their fault. There is that finger pointing and people saying ‘you have done that to your child’.

“And it’s such a dangerous narrative. Paracetamol can be lifesaving if you get a high fever during pregnancy. It’s just another conspiracy theory coming out of this US administration but there will be some who believe it.

“It’s nice to see it has been debunked but they won’t stand back on that podium and announce they made a mistake. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they double down on it. We have to be really careful because there are people out there who will believe this stuff.

“Not taking paracetamol when you have a high fever when pregnant can do damage to your baby. You just fear some mums may be causing their baby harm by listening to this lunatic.”