Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is apparently about to solve a mystery that countless doctors and researchers have failed to crack. This week, the Secretary of Health and Human Services and longtime vaccine skeptic teased that he will reveal the cause(s) of autism spectrum disorder next month.
Kennedy made the claim during President Donald Trump’s lengthy cabinet meeting Tuesday. After being prompted by Trump, RFK Jr. stated that his agency will announce having found “certain interventions” that are “clearly almost certainly causing autism” in a report set to come out in September.
Kennedy has previously argued that childhood vaccines are responsible for autism—a link unsupported by the vast majority of relevant studies.
RFK Jr’s antivax wild goose chase
For more than 20 years, RFK Jr. has repeatedly spread misinformation about vaccines, which has included blaming certain vaccines or vaccine ingredients for triggering autism.
Kennedy has been less overt about making this claim recently. But during the congressional meetings to vet his nomination for HHS chief held in late January, Kennedy pointedly refused to say that vaccines do not cause autism and cited a widely criticized study as credible evidence for a potential connection.
In March, Reuters reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be tasked with reexamining whether vaccines cause autism; later that month, HHS changed tack and appointed a notorious anti-vaccination proponent, David Geier, to lead the study. In April, RFK Jr. announced that HHS would launch a series of studies aimed at uncovering the “environmental toxins” purportedly responsible for rising rates of reported autism cases, with results expected by September.
Why there’s nothing to find
Autism is a complicated condition in general, and many cases are likely triggered by a mix of genetic and environmental influences, rather than a single cause.
To be perfectly clear, though, dozens of studies over the years haven’t found evidence that vaccines or specific vaccine ingredients are among these causes. Just last month, another study of 1.2 million people in Denmark failed to show a link between aluminum in vaccines and autism or other neurological conditions—a conclusion that so angered Kennedy he called for the study’s publisher to retract it (it, of course, refused).
It’s true that the rate of reported autism cases in children has gone up over time. It’s also possible that some external risk factors, such as prenatal exposure to air pollution or parents having children at an older age, could be contributing to a genuine increase in autism. But many experts have argued that an increased awareness of autism symptoms as well as broader criteria in how autism is diagnosed largely account for this rise.
RFK Jr. (and Trump, for that matter) has rejected that explanation entirely. And it’s likely that Kennedy will stack the odds in his favor to find something else to blame for autism, vaccines included. Earlier this year, RFK Jr. purged the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and restocked it with his ideological allies, who then quickly recommended the removal of thimerosal (a long-time bogeyman of the anti-vax movement) from the few remaining vaccines that contain it.
Kennedy will certainly claim to have all the answers next month. No reasonable person should accept them as the truth.