The US Department of Health and Human Services has launched a \u201cmassive testing and research effort\u201d involving hundreds of scientists worldwide that will determine \u201cwhat has caused the autism epidemic\u201d by September, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday. But experts expressed doubt that the research would be done in good faith, given Kennedy\u2019s history of linking autism and vaccines despite strong evidence that the two are not connected. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve launched a massive testing and research effort that\u2019s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,\u201d he told President Donald Trump in a Cabinet meeting. \u201cBy September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we\u2019ll be able to eliminate those exposures.\u201d <\/p>\n
The president responded that \u201cthere will be no bigger news conference than that,\u201d suggesting \u201cthere\u2019s got to be something artificial out there that\u2019s doing this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rates of autism in the US have been rising, to about 1 in 36 children being identified with autism spectrum disorder in 2020, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy suggested Thursday that newer numbers may show \u201cthey\u2019re going up again,\u201d to about 1 in 31. In 2000, the rate was 1 in 150. <\/p>\n
Researchers who study autism say that rates are on the rise for a few reasons, including increased awareness, broader definitions of what constitutes autism, improved screening tools and processes, and earlier detection. Its cause isn\u2019t fully understood, but factors including genetics as well as advanced parental age, prenatal exposure to air pollution or certain pesticides, and other environmental influences are thought to play a role. <\/p>\n
What doesn\u2019t: vaccines. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo link has been found between autism and vaccines, including those containing thimerosal, a mercury-based compound,\u201d according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. <\/p>\n
Yet Trump seemed to offer an implication about where Kennedy\u2019s \u201cmassive testing and research effort\u201d could lead. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can come up with that answer, where you stop taking something, you stop eating something, or maybe it\u2019s a shot,\u201d he told Kennedy on Thursday. \u201cBut something\u2019s causing it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kennedy\u2019s history of anti-vaccine advocacy is well-documented, and despite pre-confirmation promises to Sen. Bill Cassidy \u2013 the Republican doctor who helms the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee \u2013 that he wouldn\u2019t dismantle the US system for approving and monitoring the safety of vaccines, Kennedy\u2019s actions as the nation\u2019s top public health official have done little to suggest a change in viewpoints. <\/p>\n
Kennedy directed the CDC to study vaccines and autism last month, despite the agency\u2019s own research showing no link. Under his watch, the top vaccine regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Peter Marks, was forced out, writing in his resignation letter that Kennedy \u201cwishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.\u201d And the department has hired as a senior data analyst David Geier, a self-proclaimed autism expert who published a since-retracted paper with his father, Mark Geier, purporting to show links between vaccines and autism. <\/p>\n
Kennedy has also downplayed a fast-growing measles outbreak centered in West Texas that has killed two unvaccinated children. <\/p>\n
Asked Thursday on Fox News about the child who died of measles last week, Kennedy claimed that \u201cshe had a lot of complications that could have killed her,\u201d although the Texas health department has noted that neither child had any previously reported underlying conditions. <\/p>\n
Kennedy added, \u201cWe need to do better at treating kids who have this disease and not just saying the only answer is vaccination.\u201d <\/p>\n
And although Kennedy this week gave his strongest endorsement yet of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, telling CBS News, \u201cWe encourage people to get the measles vaccine,\u201d he\u2019s also lauded doctors in Texas who are providing treatment including budesonide, a steroid typically used for asthma, and the antibiotic clarithromycin. <\/p>\n
At Thursday\u2019s Cabinet meeting, Kennedy claimed that measles cases in the US \u201chave now plateaued,\u201d despite them growing by between 19% and 36% a week in Texas over the past month, with new outbreaks popping up in Indiana and Ohio. And he said \u201cwe\u2019re trying to refocus the press\u201d on the \u201cchronic disease epidemic,\u201d first citing children with diabetes before moving to autism. <\/p>\n
Kennedy doubled down on Fox News, claiming that previous vaccine safety studies were insufficient. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to look at facts,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to look at everything. Everything is on the table: our food system, our water, our air, different ways of parenting, all the kind of changes that may have triggered this epidemic.\u201d <\/p>\n
HHS Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement Thursday that \u201cThe NIH is actively investigating the root causes of autism, as directed by the Presidential Commission to Make America Healthy Again. With autism rates rising at an alarming pace, uncovering its etiology is a national imperative. Millions of American families are urgently seeking answers, and the NIH is fully committed to leaving no stone unturned in confronting this catastrophic epidemic \u2013 employing only gold-standard, evidence-based science.\u201d <\/p>\n
Advocates for the autism community met Thursday\u2019s announcement with skepticism. <\/p>\n
The Autism Society of America called Kennedy\u2019s claim \u201cboth unrealistic and misleading.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cLeading disability organizations, the scientific community, and credible medical experts all agree: we need more rigorous, science-based research \u2013 not speculation, less transparency, or oversimplified timelines,\u201d the society said in a statement. \u201cWe are deeply concerned by the lack of transparency around this effort \u2013 who is leading it, what methods are being used, and whether it will meet established scientific standards.\u201d <\/p>\n
The health secretary\u2019s comment about eliminating \u201cexposures\u201d that cause autism \u201creally is giving the game away,\u201d said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not going in with an open mind, going, \u2018oh, I wonder what causes autism.\u2019 They\u2019re going: \u2018We\u2019re going to prove that it\u2019s caused by a certain thing.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has previously objected to Kennedy\u2019s nomination to lead HHS and spoken out against the agency\u2019s hiring of Geier. <\/p>\n
The Maryland Board of Physicians disciplined Geier in 2011 for practicing medicine without a license. That same year, the Maryland regulators revoked his father\u2019s medical license, saying he \u201cendangers autistic children and exploits their parents.\u201d At least six other states followed suit. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, House Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee launched a probe of Geier\u2019s involvement in the HHS autism study. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, health researchers said that Kennedy\u2019s deadline of September \u2013 five months from now \u2013 is a sign itself of the unseriousness of the endeavor. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven developing a research program would take longer than five months,\u201d said Dr. Lisa Settles, director of Tulane\u2019s Center for Autism and Related Disorders, who\u2019s spent more than 20 years in autism research. \u201cSo how are you going to develop this program, collect the data and analyze the data in five months? That\u2019s not really feasible. \u2026 I definitely don\u2019t feel like the research that would be proposed at this point in time would be free of bias.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, is a vaccine researcher who wrote a book about his daughter, called \u201cVaccines Did Not Cause Rachel\u2019s Autism.\u201d He pointed out that autism\u2019s causes have been \u201cwell-studied by the NIH and their grantees to the various academic health centers, and we have a lot of information. So I don\u2019t understand what sudden new information [Kennedy\u2019s] going to obtain by September.\u201d <\/p>\n
More likely, Hotez said, the answer is preordained \u2013 and wrong. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s already got his predetermined framework for what he says causes autism when it\u2019s actually none of those things, because autism begins in early fetal brain development before kids ever even see vaccines,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
HHS recently cut its staff by 25% in a dramatic restructuring that\u2019s eliminated entire departments, leading some public health experts to question how the administration could truly lead an expansive global study amid the drive to reduce federal costs and staff. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how you can do it if they\u2019re cutting all the budget in NIH. Where\u2019s the money coming from?\u201d said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, which called on Wednesday for Kennedy to resign or be fired. \u201cAnd how you coordinate a worldwide study when you\u2019ve walked away from [the World Health Organization] and you\u2019ve alienated all the researchers around the world?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The US Department of Health and Human Services has launched a \u201cmassive testing and research effort\u201d involving hundreds of scientists worldwide that will determine \u201cwhat has caused the autism epidemic\u201d by September, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday. But experts expressed doubt that the research would be done in good faith, given Kennedy\u2019s history …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":410,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}