On Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr took to the stage of the Hubert Humphrey Building, which houses the Department of Health and Human Services, to talk about the Centers for Disease Control’s latest numbers on children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
I made sure to get there as early as I could. As an autistic person and journalist who wrote a whole book entitled We’re Not Broken, which sought to move discussion about autism beyond talking about vaccines and focusing on helping them live better lives, I wanted to be right in Kennedy’s sights.
Kennedy, who has spent years promoting the widely-debunked lie that vaccines cause autism, began by complaining that he would speak on reporting of data about children with autism that began in 2022.
“These studies are two years later than they should be,” he said. “I have to wait two years to react.”
That likely frustrates Kennedy, whom President Donald Trump has tasked with finding out what is causing the “autism epidemic,” by September. Though if Elon Musk, who would apparently count as a victim of this so-called “autism epidemic” that Kennedy denounces, had not fired so many federal employees, they could have perhaps told the health secretary that these studies take time because of the amount of scrutiny they require.
(Musk revealed during an episode of Saturday Night Live in 2021 that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition associated with the autism spectrum.)
But Kennedy took it a step further by comparing what he has called the “autism epidemic” to a measles epidemic and diabetes, even though autism does not kill people the way measles or diabetes can.
Kennedy proceeded to scaremonger about the increase in autism rates, which jumped from 1 in 36 in the last CDC report to 1 in 31 this year.
“There is an extreme risk for boys,” he said, saying that the risk for boys to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is one in 20. Though, if Kennedy had bothered to “do his own research,” as many in the anti-vaccine movement say, he’d know that this is not a problem unique to boys and if anything, girls and people assigned female at birth, are heavily underdiagnosed. So it is likely not an “extreme risk” for boys but a relative undercounting for girls.
For one example, look no further than Bella Ramsey, the nonbinary actor known for their role in The Last of Us, who only got a diagnosis after a crew member suggested they do so. Countless women I interviewed in my first book only got a diagnosis after their sons received one.
Kennedy not only risks getting the facts wrong on gender. The day before, he talked about the fact that more Black, Asian-American and Pacific Islander and Hispanic children received an ASD diagnosis than white people or people in higher socioeconomic status.
But he did not seem to have taken in why this appears to be the case.
“These findings may indicate improvements in ASD awareness, identification, and access to services in communities serving Black, Hispanic, and A/PI children,” the study said.
That prompted me to ask Kennedy, during his event at the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday afternoon, about the improved diagnoses for nonwhite autistic people.
“There are small slivers of the autism epidemic – maybe 10 percent or maybe 20 percent according to the studies, the highest study is around 25 percent – that can be attributed to better recognition and better diagnosis,” he said.
Kennedy proceeded to say that these numbers could not be attributed simply to better detection.
“Instead of listening to this canard of epidemic denial, all you have to do is start reading a little science, because the answer is very clear, and this is catastrophic for our country,” he said.
But again, Kennedy appeared not to be paying attention to the actual report, which said explicitly in its conclusion that difference in autism prevalence “can reflect differing practices in ASD evaluation and identification and availability and requirements that affect accessibility of services.”
Perhaps the most infuriating part came when Kennedy began to talk about how autism causes misery for the autistic people and their families.
“Autism destroys families, but more importantly it destroys our greatest resource which is our children,” he said. “And 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.”
This is such a tired and outdated cliché that dates back to the old idea that autism is a tragedy. This narrative portrays autistic people as damaged goods, which has been used as a rationale for numerous instances of parents killing their autistic kids or making them drink them bleach.
Whenever I write about autism acceptance, people tend to think I am diminishing the legitimate challenges autistic people have. Far from it. I’ve vocally said that more research needs to go into how autistic people die needlessly from epilepsy episodes. The life expectancy for autistic people is far lower than that of their neurotypical peers.
I also hate seeing autistic people engage in self-injurious behavior. It breaks my heart because while when I have meltdowns, I am able to articulate what is overstimulating me or causing me distress, autistic people who cannot speak often go unheard and people focus instead on the maladaptive behavior rather than helping them calm their senses and remove the outside stimuli.
I also have written about the onerous system to provide around-the-clock care services through Medicaid for many people with disabilities as well as how Democrats and Trump planned to address the cost.
In the same token, I’ve also met incredible autistic people whom the world has overlooked because it chose to see them as tragedies and sources for grief. When I wrote my first book, I interviewed Hari Srinivasan, a nonspeaking autistic young man who became a poet and writer. He eventually graduated the University of California Berkeley and now is a graduate student at Vanderbilt University.
In writing my second book about autism and manhood, I met Ben Breaux, another autistic man who lives in Virginia who uses a letterboard to comment on politics and is an accomplished artist.
I’ve met Leo Rosa, whose mother Shannon Des Roches Rosa has built an incredible environment for her son that allows him to live a good and happy life that lets him be free.
But even if they never created a single piece of art or simply existed, their life would not be a tragedy. There would still be joy. There would still be grace in their existence. Not because autistic people are naturally angelic, but because they are human beings with inherent value.
Autistic people do have real challenges they need to be addressed. But Kennedy’s willful misreading of the data risks putting autistic people at a massive disadvantage. And he has a major platform as the nation’s top health official.
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