Once again displaying the incompetence inherent in the administration, Republican President Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) held his first press conference on Monday.
The purpose was for HHS head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to spout the misinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories the antivaxxer is known for.
This time, RFK Jr.'s target was people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
RFK Jr. again made false claims similar to ones he's made in the past, while coupling them with an inaccurate characterization of how ASD presents itself in the majority of those diagnosed.
Trump's HHS Secretary stated:
"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."
You can see clips of his remarks from the nearly half hour long press conference here:
People found RFK Jr.'s comments "appalling" and "disgusting."
Many called out RFK Jr.'s own past behavior and health disclosures.
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RFK Jr.'s remarks were made as he announced new CDC data shows autism diagnoses rose slightly since 2020.
The latest figures show 1 in 31 children will be diagnosed with autism by age 8. This is up from 1 in 36 children in 2020 and 1 in 10,000 in 1970—when only profound autism was diagnosed and girls were almost never assessed for ASD. The rate of 1 in 34 diagnosed by age 4 remains unchanged since 2020.
While medical and scientific experts have repeatedly stated—and demonstrated—the increase is in diagnoses of ASD, not overall incidence of the disorder, conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr. claim the opposite is true.
Autism experts say major factors contributing to the increase are:
- improved detection and diagnostic criteria
- better training in primary care doctors
- broadened definition of autism, meaning disorders once counted as separate are now added to ASD
- reduction in gender and racial biases, while White males are still the highest percentage of population assessed, females and racial minority assessments and diagnoses have increased dramatically
- increased awareness among caregivers and early intervention leading to earlier and more frequent diagnosis
In 1970, the majority of people with ASD were misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, leading many people to be diagnosed in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or older. While it's impossible to know if rates of ASD in 1970 and 2025 are exactly the same, experts believe they are largely unchanged.
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But RFK Jr. and other armchair experts—with no education or training in medicine or the required scientific disciplines—blame "environmental factors" for a massive incidence increase—an autism epidemic—that doesn't actually exist. They blame everything from vaccines, to high-fructose corn syrup, to fast food, to fluoridated water for "skyrocketing" numbers of children "developing" autism at age two.
However, ASD—unlike blindness or deafness—is difficult to diagnose before age two, meaning children don't spontaneously develop autism at that age, as untrained, scientifically illiterate individuals like RFK Jr. claim.
Instead, the standard developmental milestones for a two-year-old make the preexisting ASD easier for caregivers and medical providers to notice.
Much like a speech impediment can't be diagnosed before a child learns to talk, in all but the most profound cases, ASD is exceptionally difficult to assess and diagnose until a child reaches the age where walking, talking, and other milestones are expected to occur.
RFK Jr. said:
"[Autism] is a preventable disease. We know it's an environmental exposure."
"It has to be, genes do not cause epidemics."
Which makes clear the danger of untrained, ignorant individuals observing things they can't understand and drawing conclusions.
Much less creating national health policy based on their own misunderstanding and imagination.
* The author, Amelia Christnot, is autistic and has written previously on the subject. ~ Comic Sands editorial staff
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