On an unknown date, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. eliminated an entire division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that was researching environmental causes of autism, and slashed tens of millions of dollars that were being used to research autism and its causes.
He has also shut down McCanlies’ lab and ceased funding for over fifty autism-related studies. McCanlies has uncovered groundbreaking research on autism, finding that genetic and environmental factors both play a role in causing autism. The Trump administration has exacerbated these environmental risk factors by legalizing the use and unsafe disposal of dangerous chemicals.
A ProPublica review of federal data uncovered RFK Jr.’s removal of “$40 million in grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health for dozens of autism-related research projects…” Some of the revoked funding went to universities deemed “woke” by the Trump administration.
This reflects another lie of RFK Jr. On a radio program in April, RFK Jr. pledged to find the cause of autism by September. This boast has ultimately fallen flat; it will be impossible to conduct even minimal research without the funding.
RFK Jr. maintains the delusional, evidence-free belief that vaccines cause autism.
For 20 years, Kennedy has espoused the debunked theory that autism is caused by vaccines, dismissing evidence to the contrary by arguing that vaccine manufacturers, researchers and regulators all have an interest in obscuring their harms.
He remains skeptical of the scientists who have been funded by his own agency to study the neurodevelopmental condition. “We need to stop trusting the experts,” he told right-wing host Tucker Carlson in a June interview, going on to suggest that previous studies that found no relationship between vaccines and autism were marred by “trickery” and researchers’ self-interest.
ProPublica
RFK Jr. is now heading a new federally funded $50 million autism research initiative. A coalition of scientists warned that the initiative lacks transparency and that RFK Jr. has ignored recent high quality research; the initiative essentially serves as a form of confirmation bias, with the results of its research being skewed into whatever RFK Jr. wanted. This runs afoul of the scientific process. RFK Jr. is not a career scientist, doctor, or health official, and is therefore not qualified to lead research initiatives of this nature.
The Autism Science Foundation warned that the cuts will result in decades of “delays and setbacks.”
