Throughout an Aug. 26 Cupboard assembly, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to satisfy his April promise that the causes of autism can be revealed subsequent month.
Throughout a Cupboard assembly in April, Secretary of Well being and Human Providers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to announce the causes of autism by September. Days earlier than the calendar turns to that month, Kennedy bolstered that message.
Kennedy famous in a Cupboard assembly on Aug. 26 that an autism research he initiated in April had uncovered “interventions” which can be “almost certainly causing” the dysfunction.
President Donald Trump requested a progress report from Kennedy about autism through the Cupboard assembly.
“Autism is such a tremendous horror show—what’s happening in our country and some other countries, but mostly our country,“ Trump said. ”How are you doing on that?”
Kennedy responded: “We are doing very well. We will have announcements as promised in September.”
A report launched by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) on April 15 confirmed that one in 31 youngsters in the US has autism.
The figures, which present one other soar in an extended line of will increase, stem from the CDC’s newest Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Community survey printed within the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The report prompted Kennedy to say that “the autism epidemic is running rampant.”
“That’s up significantly from two years earlier and nearly five times higher than when the CDC first started running autism surveys in children born in 1992,” Kennedy stated in an April 15 assertion.
“Prevalence for boys is an astounding 1 in 20 and in California, it’s 1 in 12.5.”
The earlier Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring report launched in 2023 confirmed that one in 36 8-year-old American youngsters had autism in 2020. The April 15 survey displays a 16.1 p.c improve in two years.
“The autism epidemic has now reached a scale unprecedented in human history because it affects the young,” Kennedy stated in an announcement on April 15.
“The risks and costs of this crisis are a thousand times more threatening to our country than COVID-19. Autism is preventable and it is unforgivable that we have not yet identified the underlying causes. We should have had these answers 20 years ago.”
The Nationwide Institutes of Well being stated that though autism may be identified at any age, it’s described “as a ‘developmental disorder’ because symptoms generally appear in the first two years of life.”
In an deal with on April 16, Kennedy stated that autism is an epidemic and criticized those that attribute the soar in circumstances largely or solely to raised screening and diagnostic standards.
“Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children,” he 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.”
The remarks drew criticism from some dad and mom, who stated that their autistic youngsters are profitable and never reflective of what Kennedy described.
Different dad and mom of kids with autism defended Kennedy, noting that he was precisely describing how the situation impacts some households.
In a city corridor with Dr. Phil McGraw on April 28, Kennedy reiterated that he was bringing consideration to the plight of households who’ve youngsters with “profound autism,” which he stated represents about 26.4 p.c of individuals with the situation.
“What that means is non-verbal, non-toilet trained, and all these other stereotypical behaviors like toe walking, stimming, hand flapping, et cetera,” he stated.
Stimming refers to repetitive actions or verbalizations engaged in by some individuals with autism.
In December 2024, Trump stated that he would additionally give Kennedy the liberty to analyze the potential hyperlink between vaccines and autism.
“When you look at some of the problems, when you look at what’s going on with disease and sickness in our country, something’s wrong,” Trump stated in December.
“I think somebody has to find out. If you go back 25 years ago, you had very little autism.”
Kennedy has stated for years that autism is probably going tied to childhood vaccines and environmental components.
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