Overview

• During a cabinet meeting Monday, President Trump said rising autism diagnoses must have an 'artificial' cause such as a drug.
• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Trump he plans to identify the cause of autism by September.
• Kennedy cited figures of roughly 1 in 31 children and 1 in 12.5 boys with autism, claiming a rise from less than 1 in 10,000 in 1970 and pointing to California data of 1 in 19.
• The CDC maintains that vaccines are not linked to autism and attributes increased prevalence to diagnostic practices and access to services.
• Mediaite notes Kennedy is not a medical doctor and has promoted the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.