RFK Jr. Calls Autism ‘Preventable,’ Drawing Ire From Researchers
RFK Jr. Calls Autism ‘Preventable,’ Drawing Ire From Researchers
The health secretary said he would prioritize studies into environmental causes while harshly discounting other factors scientists say are likely contributing to rising rates of the condition.
In remarks laced with scientific inaccuracies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said on Wednesday that autism was preventable while directly contradicting researchers within his own agency on a primary driver behind rising rates of the condition in young children.
This is the Republican modus operandi:
"This is the fantasy we want to believe. And if the facts do not support our fantasy, we will accuse you of lying to us and call for your death."
Where did he get his relevant PhD from again?
Ah, so even worse than "Cracker jack box".
The DeVry University of Nepotism.
He got his relevant business model based on vaccine public panic and autism nonederstanding is what really matters here.
Someone please shut this stupid grifter up.
Source?…. Trust me bro, I have a good feeling.
It is from RFK's hole: The cavity where a worm starved to death.
I listened to him speaking, and his message really came across as personal incredulity from my vantage point.
This man will kill millions of people.
I mean... Trump said there wouldn't be positive COVID tests if we didn't test, so maybe RFK is going to borrow that method of preventing autism by not testing and documenting.
This is the dumbest circus show ever.
You know why autism rates have “increased”?
Because we understand a lot more about the condition now, and are a whole fucking lot better at determining whether a person may be on the spectrum or not - a “spectrum” that, I should add, is a whole fucking lot more nuanced and less binary than the “he’s a good worker” vs “let’s hold Timmy back a couple grades” dichotomy that you would have seen up through the late 90s and early 2000s.
By some estimates, 20% of the population is expected to be neurodivergent in one way or another. Autism and ADHD are wildly underdiagnosed to this day. Especially for AFAB people.
and its also genetic, and not organically caused by chemicals.
Who cares anymore? This man is unfit to hold the position. I'd rather focus on us IMMEDIATELY removing this administration whatever means necessary, than highlighting the latest nonsense of RFK, outburst of Trump/Musk, or stupidity of Vance
"Autism is preventable"- says the guy with a brain worm.
The brain of an autistic person is literally built different in the womb, but of course he doesn't want to admit that. Autistic brains are usually noticably more symmetrical with more long distance connections and fewer local connections.
But he has chosen a different "truth" to act on because he wants to feel special.
The problem with that theory is that it is based on science, they use a different base. I'm not sure what it is yet, but it's obviouslult not science. Maybe it is just wanting to be special, but even then it doesn't make sense to me.
Desire. Selfishness. They want what they want and they "don't have to explain themselves to you." When that's your basis, there is no cause and effect, there are no consequences, and there are no reasons why they can't.
Stupidity is preventable.
Ignorance is preventable. Stupidity is assigned at birth.
Brain worms are also preventable, you dung heap. Yet, you fucked that up.
The Regime: “It’s preventable as long as you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and bury those problems deep inside. No, deeper. Now shut up and get back to work.”
"Our research has shown that if you inject a cocktail ivermectin and bleach while shoving a UV light bulb up it's ass it prevents autism."
Only if that's done at the moment of conception.
There is a way to prevent having a child with Autism and it's absolutely fool proof. Just don't have kids. Boom, you've prevented a kid from having Autism.
That's the poor man's solution. If you're rich and famous like Elon Musk, you can IVF away the undesirable traits like neurodiverge or the presence of an X chromosome where there must be a Y instead /s
Please, you leather-faced ghoul, show your work and prevent any future cases of autism.
Abort all the babies! No autism ever again!
I can entirely believe they take the eugenics implications of this and run with it.
People like RFK are preventable.
Happy Autism Awareness month I guess
How people can consider even a regular man a guy so blatantly and obviously and clearly stupid and ignorant?
RFK was, and still is, preventable.
Only his final years I'm afraid
Fuckin brain worm Bobby
He should just go back to injecting copious amounts of heroin and peeing his pants. Pathetic fucking loser that he is.
You’ve finally done it maga. You’ve made me sob. What hurtful things to say about me and my son
I genuinely don't understand why people here are railing him. All the article said was he wanted to research environmental causes for an increasingly common condition. That seems totally reasonable. Look at car pollution reducing avg brain capacity. Look at plastics pollution. Look at toxins in ultraproceassed food, many of which are banned in EU but not USA. Look at our water quality and lead pipes problem
Look, I know he has talked about vaccines before, but literally didn't mention it here. It's totally reasonable and good for all of us to tackle pollutants, toxins, environmental quality. Yes, it's likely that many health problems would be resolved if we understood this better; that's a valid theory to pursue. But yes, I know, I know "maga bad"
That would be reasonable if it was in good faith. RFK is not performing research to gain a better understanding of neurodivergence. He's looking to affirm his personal opinion by finding a correlation to conflate into causation.
Blaming environmental risk factors for the uptick, he accused the media and the public of succumbing to a “myth of epidemic denial” when it came to autism. He also called research into the genetic factors that scientists say play a vital role in whether a child will develop autism “a dead end.”
He's rejecting existing findings.
“Genes don’t cause epidemics,” he said. “You need an environmental toxin.”
And prescribing his belief as the correct one.
Do you notice how he said "toxin" instead of "factor" as well? This is an intentional choice of words, framing autism as a disease caused by harmful factors. This is not somebody who is interested in understanding it.
Autism rates among children have increased nearly fivefold since 2000, when the C.D.C. first began collecting data on the condition’s incidence in children. The C.D.C.’s new report attributed some of the increase in autism’s prevalence to more screening for the condition. And researchers have pointed to several other factors, including greater awareness of what autism looks like, more access to services, more parents having children later in life and broader definitions of the disorder.
There's more awareness and openness about autism than there used to be? How shocking similarity with the "increase" in homosexuality some decades ago. Maybe it's new-fangled chemtrails turn people gay and autistic.
Mr. Kennedy vowed that under his leadership, the health department would focus on looking into certain substances, like mold and food additives, and parental obesity to try to reverse rising rates of autism in children.
Again, he is not looking to understand what autism is or how it affects those living with it. Those are not words of support for a demographic of disadvantaged people. Those are words aspiring to eradicate an extrinsic medical condition like HIV or cancer.
“These are kids who, many of them, were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they’re 2 years old,” he said.
Yeah, because children that young aren't screened for it.
But again, notice the word choice? "Regressed." This is somebody who sees neurodivergents as undesireable and beneath himself.
Make no mistake: RFK isn't promising any other solution to autism than a Final Solution.
Yes, the type of crap that RFK jr is pulling is classic denialist bullshit.
If you've debated any of the various denialist dumbasses on various topics, you'll see it over and over and over again. Doesn't matter if they are evolution deniers, vaccine deniers, HIV deniers, moon landing deniers, Holocaust deniers, they all use the same exact set of dishonest tactics - the Gish Gallop, the "just asking questions" trope, the "teach the controversy" stuff, and it all comes with lots and lots of logical fallacies.
Most all of them never learn a fucking thing, never apologize for their inherent dishonesty and certainly never change. You'll point out how what they said was bullshit on one day and within hours/days, they'll be back again, doing almost the exact same thing. Many of them are too stupid to know how much they are owned by others in online forums; some others are just fully aware, but they just don't care because the immorality that goes along with lying at that level runs so very deep.
Well, thanks for explaining
You hear that Elon? No, excuse you shit bag!
Bold of anyone to assume he actually knows or cares what that is.