RFK Jr. Vows To Determine ‘Cause Of Autism’ By September
The head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has repeatedly promoted a baseless connection between vaccines and autism.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Health And Human Services (HHS) will determine the “cause of autism” by September.
During an televised Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump, RFK Jr., who was recently appointed as the secretary of the HHS under the new administration, said that he plans to launch a “massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of the “autism epidemic.”
“We’re going to look at everything. Everything is on the table, our food system, our water, our air, different ways of parenting, all the kinds of changes that may have triggered this epidemic. It is an epidemic,” he told Fox News later on Thursday. “Epidemics are not caused by genes. Genes can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin. So we know that it is an environmental toxin that is causing this cataclysm.”
For years, the conspiracy theorist has spread anti-vaccine rhetoric, including a discredited theory that vaccines cause autism.
The theory began in 1998 following a paper written by British physician Andrew Wakefield that described 12 children developing autism after receiving the FDA approved measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, according to the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The paper was later retracted, and since then several studies have found that there is no connection between vaccines and autism.
But RFK Jr.’s fear mongering and misinformation has continued to spark concern amongst the public who still worry about the potential link.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of autism has increased, with about 1 in 36 children having been diagnosed with autism as of 2024. But the increase is not because of vaccines, but rather clinicians becoming better at noticing signs of the developmental disability, Stat News reports.
In a statement, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network condemned RFK Jr.’s “untrue, impossible, and ableist” comments that he promoted in his interview.
“There is no evidence that autism is actually becoming more common,” the organization said in the statement. “Even if it were, however, autistic and other disabled people belong in our society. To claim otherwise, and to speak as though our existence is some kind of calamity that must be eliminated, is a form of eugenics — the dangerous ideology based on the idea that ‘some people are born to be a burden on the rest.’”