US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is on track to identify “interventions” that are “certainly causing autism”, and possible ways of addressing them, in September, he says.
The Hill reports that six months ago, Kennedy had vowed to find the cause of growing rates of autism, an “epidemic” he described as “dwarfing the Covid epidemic”.
Asking for a progress report during a Cabinet meeting last Tuesday, President Donald Trump had called autism “such a tremendous horror show… what’s happening in our country and some other countries, but mostly our country”.
“We will have announcements as promised in September, finding interventions, certain interventions, that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism,” replied Kennedy. “And we’re going to be able to address those in September.”
Kennedy has long claimed that environmental factors, or vaccines, are probably linked to the rising rate of autism diagnoses, saying research to back this up has been blocked by federal authorities. In April, he argued that autism should be prevented because autistic people are burdens on their family and society.
“These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” he had said.
During the Cabinet meeting, Kennedy pointed to his oft-repeated evidence of environmental factors contributing to autism rates, noting how diagnosis rates have significantly jumped since the 1970s.
According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 31 children and one in 45 adults in America have autism, significantly higher than the one in 150 rate just a few decades ago. But experts say this is more likely due to autism detection improving since the diagnosis was first developed and the criteria broadening over the years.
The first time someone was diagnosed with autism was in 1943.
The Hill article – RFK Jr. says agency will reveal causes of autism in September (Open access)
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