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Sept. 27, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Molly Hunter and Tony BrownDUBLIN — They’re already storied franchises, but when the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings take to the field at Dublin’s Croke Park on Sunday, they’ll make history as the first NFL teams to play a regular season game in Ireland. And that has many fans of both teams so stoked that they made their way across the Atlantic to the Irish capital.“This is the Steelers’ game, and the Vikings are just humbly invited to come get whooped,” Steelers fan Ryan Gray told NBC News earlier this week. Gray, who traveled from Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the game, added he was enjoying “not only Dublin but Ireland as a whole” and he was “very very thankful for that.” Vikings fans Cindy and Johnny File, who came from Minnesota with their friends Fred and Jerri Menth, were also soaking up the atmosphere, enjoying “the craic,” as it’s known in Ireland, and equally bullish about their team’s chances.

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The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings will make history as they become the first NFL teams to play a regular season game in Ireland.



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Sept. 28, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Last winter, Brian Noonan read online that some doctors were prescribing an obscure drug, typically given to cancer patients, for autism. Curious, he looked into it for his son Benjamin, who had just been diagnosed with autism in October.“We jumped on it,” Noonan said. “It felt right and it made sense.”The medication was leucovorin, also called folinic acid. It’s a synthetic form of vitamin B9 or folate, which the body needs to make healthy blood cells. During pregnancy, folate is important to reduce the risk of birth defects.Last Monday, the drug was thrust into the national spotlight by President Donald Trump in a rambling press conference about autism that mainly focused on the president and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s claim that taking acetaminophen during pregnancy could cause autism. Trump briefly mentioned that an “existing drug” — referring to leucovorin — may help with certain symptoms of autism. For those in the autism community, leucovorin is not new. Dr. Richard Frye, a behavioral child neurologist in Phoenix has studied leucovorin and autism for two decades. He made clear that it is not a cure for autism and that more research is needed. He does, however, prescribe it to some people with autism.Noonan’s son Benjamin, who is 4 years old, is one of Frye’s patients. “He’s higher functioning,” Noonan said. “He’s verbal, but he really struggled to put together sentences.” Since starting on the medicine, the family believes Benjamin’s speech has improved, though he still has difficulties with hyperactivity and impulsiveness.Still, Noonan added, he’s under no impression that the drug is a miracle pill. Benjamin also attends a behavioral program preparing him for kindergarten, Noonan said, and he plans to enroll him in speech and occupational therapy. “We very, very much understand we’re still taking an experimental medication,” he said. The Noonan family. Benjamin, 4, who has autism, has used leucovorin.Courtesy of Brian NoonanOther families say the drug conferred larger benefits.Ben Blomgren, of Minneapolis, said his 11-year-old son, Josh, had been prescribed leucovorin off-label in February after he was at risk of being kicked out of school, even as they tried behavioral modification methods.“He’s pretty severe,” Blomgren said. “He didn’t have any language skills. He was not toilet trained.” After starting the medication, Blomgren said Josh’s sleep improved, he’s fully toilet trained and he’s stopped running away from them. “It wasn’t overnight, but we saw major improvement,” he said. Yomarie Miranda, of Florida, said she saw improvements in her 7-year-old son Ethan after he started the medication, including following instructions in class.Ethan was prescribed the medication off label earlier this month, she said.“He’s now looking at me when I speak with him. He’s talking more than before with complete sentences,” she said.A highly unusual moveThe Food and Drug Administration first approved leucovorin in the 1980s to help reduce the toxic side effects of certain chemotherapy drugs.In the decades since, researchers have also studied whether it might treat cerebral folate deficiency (CFD), a neurological condition that makes it harder for folate to reach the brain. Some children with autism also have cerebral folate deficiency, which neurologists say can affect speech, mood and behavior. Last Monday, the FDA said it planned to update the drug’s label to include that use.But the agency’s decision, experts say, rests on just a handful of small studies. And despite Trump’s endorsement, the maker of the brand-name version, GSK, has yet to submit an application to the agency to change the label. In a statement, GSK said it will be submitting the request to expand the approval to include cerebral folate deficiency, though the statement does not mention autism. (Because leucovorin is already an FDA-approved drug, doctors have been able to prescribe it “off label” for other uses, though insurance may not cover it.) It’s a highly unusual move for the FDA: pushing a drug for chemotherapy side effects as a therapy for autism without a formal submission and limited evidence.“It’s incredibly irresponsible,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “For 60-plus years, we’ve counted on the FDA to help patients distinguish between products that work and products that don’t work. And here we saw the FDA making an announcement relying on a summary of unclear data and announcing that they had already decided to approve it.”Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the nonprofit Autism Science Foundation, was frustrated by the implication that this is a breakthrough in autism research.“It’s not like scientists have just been staring at their belly buttons for 20 years, not looking at autism treatments,” Halladay said in an interview earlier this week. “They have, but the standards have been very high to get [treatments] approved.”Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, said in a statement: “Analysis across 23 publications from 2009-2024 demonstrated the effectiveness for CFD. Overall, 85% of patients experienced some type of clinical benefit including improved speech/communication capabilities.” Nixon’s statement did not mention autism, and he did not respond to follow-up questions.David Mandell, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said HHS’ claim that 85% of patients experienced a benefit is a “quite a conceptual leap” because it assumes people with cerebral folate deficiency also have autism.Cerebral folate deficiency “is an extremely rare event, and it is accompanied by symptoms of epilepsy, really severe neurodevelopmental problems and some of those symptoms can look like autism, but it’s not,” he said.“I could not think of a single FDA approval that has such weak evidence in the past 20 years,” Mandell added.Frye, the Phoenix neurologist, estimates up to three-quarters of autistic children have antibodies linked to cerebral folate deficiency, based on his research. Other estimates are much lower: Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the nonprofit Autism Science Foundation, put the rates at roughly 10% to 30%.The studies on leucovorin are small but look interesting, said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner.“It certainly merits follow up,” Gottlieb said.One of the studies was conducted by Frye: a placebo-controlled trial of more than 40 children with the antibodies, published in Molecular Psychiatry in 2018. It found around two-thirds of kids who got the drug saw improvements in verbal communication after 12 weeks. Others saw no changes. The children all had language impairments, as well as a common type of autism that’s not linked to other neurological diseases.Mandell, however, said the results shouldn’t be taken as evidence.“They claim that in certain subgroups of kids in their already small sample, they find these very large effects,” he said, adding that larger-scale trials that establish clear outcomes ahead of time are needed to verify the results. Kesselheim said it’s important for patients to have access to medications that could have a benefit, especially when there is an unmet medical need. But, he said, there are still a number of unanswered questions.“There is no accurate testing for this,” he said. “What are low folate levels? What are normal folate levels? All of that stuff should be worked out.”Frye said he currently uses two methods to assess whether a child has a folate deficiency: a spinal tap — also known as a lumbar puncture — which involves inserting a needle into the lower back to collect fluid from the spinal cord, and a folate receptor antibody test originally developed for pregnant women that isn’t approved by the FDA for diagnosing folate deficiency in children. Edward Quadros, a research professor at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University who has worked with Frye studying leucovorin for autism, said parents are already trying the drug, including supplement versions, which aren’t regulated and can be dangerous.“By making the FDA approve it, and reputable pharmaceutical companies manufacturing it and selling it, at least it gives you quality dosing,” Quadros said.Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.Aria Bendix contributed.
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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleSept. 25, 2025, 8:33 PM EDTBy ReutersPresident Donald Trump on Thursday announced a new round of punishing tariffs, saying the United States will impose a 100% tariff on imported branded drugs, 25% tariff on imports of all heavy-duty trucks and 50% tariffs on kitchen cabinets.Trump also said he would start charging a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture next week.He said the new heavy-duty truck tariffs were to protect manufacturers from “unfair outside competition” and said the move would benefit companies such as Paccar-owned PCAR.O Peterbilt and Kenworth and Daimler Truck-owned DTGGe.DE Freightliner.Trump has launched numerous national security probes into potential new tariffs on a wide variety of products.He said the new tariffs on kitchen, bathroom and some furniture were because of huge levels of imports that were hurting local manufacturers.“The reason for this is the large-scale ‘FLOODING’ of these products into the United States by other outside Countries,” Trump said, citing national security concerns about U.S. manufacturing.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged the department not to impose new tariffs, noting the top five import sources are Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany and Finland “all of which are allies or close partners of the United States posing no threat to U.S. national security.”Mexico is the largest exporter of medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the United States. A study released in January said imports of those larger vehicles from Mexico have tripled since 2019.Higher tariffs on commercial vehicles could put pressure on transportation costs just as Trump has vowed to reduce inflation, especially on consumer goods such as groceries.Tariffs could also affect Chrysler-parent Stellantis STLAM.MI, which produces heavy-duty Ram trucks and commercial vans in Mexico. Sweden’s Volvo Group VOLVb.ST is building a $700 million heavy-truck factory in Monterrey, Mexico, set to start operations in 2026.Mexico is home to 14 manufacturers and assemblers of buses, trucks, and tractor trucks, and two manufacturers of engines, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.The country is also the leading global exporter of tractor trucks, 95% of which are destined for the United States.“We need our Truckers to be financially healthy and strong, for many reasons, but above all else, for National Security purposes!” Trump added.Mexico opposed new tariffs, telling the Commerce Department in May that all Mexican trucks exported to the United States have on average 50% U.S. content, including diesel engines.Last year, the United States imported almost $128 billion in heavy vehicle parts from Mexico, accounting for approximately 28% of total U.S. imports, Mexico said.The Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association also opposed new tariffs, saying Japanese companies have cut exports to the United States as they have boosted U.S. production of medium- and heavy-duty trucks.ReutersReuters
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