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RFK Jr.’s Autism Research Initiative Faces Pushback Over Controversial Claims

HHS Secretary Kennedy’s focus on environmental toxins and severe autism rhetoric draws criticism from advocacy groups and scientists, while some families express conditional support.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., conducts a news conference to discuss the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network survey, at the Hubert Humphrey Building on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. The survey states there has been a rise in Autism diagnoses in children.
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Overview

  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as HHS Secretary, announced studies to identify environmental toxins as causes of autism, promising findings by September.
  • Kennedy claims autism is a preventable disease caused by environmental exposures, rejecting genetic factors and CDC data attributing rising rates to improved diagnostics.
  • His depiction of severe autism as disabling and life-limiting has sparked backlash from autism advocacy groups, who call the rhetoric harmful and reductive.
  • Advocates and scientists criticize Kennedy’s hiring of discredited researcher David Geier and his sidelining of FDA vaccine expert Dr. Peter Marks.
  • Some families of individuals with severe autism express support for focused research but remain skeptical of the initiative’s framing and scientific basis.