In his first news conference as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr called autism an epidemic with most cases “severe,” and many boys diagnosed with autism “are non-verbal, non toilet-trained and have other stereotypical features.”
Of course, citing a new CDC study indicating an uptick in the number of cases, Kennedy baselessly claimed that “environmental toxins” are causing autism and is preventable. Kennedy vows to find a cause for autism by September — and has hired an anti-vaccine crusader, Mark Geier, to study vaccine-autism data.
“These are kids who will never pay taxes,” Kennedy declared. “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. We have to recognize we are doing this to our children.”
“The epidemic,” Kennedy said at another point, “is real.” Autism, he added, “destroys families and more importantly it destroys our greatest resource, our children.” Many children, he claimed, were “fully functional” and “regressed.”
The CDC says that some people with autism spectrum disorder have a genetic condition, but other causes are not yet known. ASD diagnoses among 8-year-olds increased from 1 in 36 to 1 in 31 children from 2020 to 2022, according to the new CDC data.
Kennedy’s statements were met with overwhelming contempt from the autism community.
More at Mother Jones, USA Today, CNN
