The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., made a significant commitment at Thursday’s cabinet meeting at the White House, saying that his agency “will know what the autism epidemic has caused” in September.
Kennedy said the HHS had launched, in the direction of President Donald Trump, a great research effort that involves “hundreds of scientists around the world” to analyze the growing rates of autism diagnoses.
“In your address, we will know for September,” Kennedy said. “We have launched a massive effort of evidence and research that will involve hundreds of scientists around the world.”
“In September, we will know what the autism epidemic has caused and we can eliminate those exhibitions,” he added.
Trump praised Kennedy in the objective of September, speculating, without scientific support, that the response to reducing the rates could be “you stop taking something, you stop eating something or maybe it is a shot, but something is causing it.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attend a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, April 10, 2025.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
Kennedy and Trump have made a priority to understand what is causing the increase in autism rates in the United States.
Scientists have been studying the cause of autism for decades, and have identified genetics and several other factors as they possibly play a role.
It is true that estimated autism rates have risen in the last 20 years, however, experts say that these growing rates are probably due to a better consciousness, a wide definition of autistic spectrum disorder and better access to services, which leads to more children being selected and diagnosed. It is possible that a still unknown factor is also contributing to the increase.
In 2000, approximately 1 in 150 children in the United States born in 1992 were diagnosed with autism. By 2020, 1 in 36 children born in 2012 was diagnosed, according to data from the centers for disease control and prevention.
At the cabinet meeting, Kennedy said he believes that these rates have increased, according to the new data that will be published, to 1 in 31 children.
In a later interview in “The story of Fox News with Martha Maccallum,” Kennedy said that the National Health Institutes would supervise the study and analyze “everything.”
“Let’s see everything. Everything is on the table: our food system, our water, our air, we will discover what this epidemic is triggering,” Kennedy said. “We know that it is an environmental toxin that is causing this cataclysm. Through NIH research, we will find an answer to this question.”
In his confirmation hearing, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said that “completely” supported childhood vaccination and did not “believe” that there was a link between vaccines and autism. But he said that finding answers on the increase in autism cases was generally a vital objective of public health.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy, president of the Senate Health Committee, encouraged Bhattacharya to analyze autism rates, but dissuaded him strongly and Kennedy of “Plouch[ing] The sterile terrain “to investigate vaccines and autism, because it had already been discredited” several times. “
“If we are giving money here, it is less money that we have to pursue the real reason,” Cassidy said, a doctor, he told Bhattacharya during his audience. But Kennedy has also brought a well -known vaccine skeptic, David Geier, to study the connection between Vaccines and Autism, The Washington Post and New York Times have reported.
The concern, experts say, although investing more in the investigation could provide answers, Kennedy has also frequently raised the issue of MMR vaccines (measles, paper and rubella) as a link, despite the fact that dozens of studies that advise against the claim.
The elevated platform for the vaccine doubts a particular risk since hundreds of measles cases extend through western Texas, largely in non -vaccinated communities, and two unvaccinated children have died.
Despite Kennedy’s efforts to investigate vaccines and autism, he said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday that he encouraged vaccination, a remarkably support deviation of some of Kennedy’s previous comments. “The government’s position, my position is that people should obtain the measles vaccine,” he said, although he added that he should not be obliged.
