RFK Jr. Commits To Knowing The Cause Of Autism By September Of This Year
from the warning-bells dept
Warning bells should have been going off in your head long before RFK Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic for several decades, was confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. We’re in the first few months of Trump’s second term, but already there are several health issues stemming from Kennedy’s efforts. There is a measles outbreak that appears to be growing by the day, leading to hundreds of infections and several deaths among the unvaccinated community, which Kennedy helped to foster. In the midst of that health emergency, Kennedy has also pushed alternative treatments that have made people sicker, generally children, all while he’s busy closing up treatment facilities designed to stamp out the outbreak.
But expanding the market for tiny caskets isn’t Kennedy’s main passion. That is reserved for blaming vaccines for the supposed uptick in the rate of autism diagnoses, a theory that has been debunked for several decades. The causes of autism have been studied for decades now, with the uptick in cases largely explained by a combination of genetic causes related the age of the parents and physical traits like birth weight along with wider awareness and testing for the condition. But despite all of that scientific effort that has gone on for years and years, RFK Jr. recently announced that HHS will have determined the cause of autism by September of this year.
The nation’s top health agency will undertake a “massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of autism, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Thursday.
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic who has pushed a discredited theory that routine childhood shots cause the developmental disability, said the effort will be completed by September and involve hundreds of scientists. He shared the plans with President Donald Trump during a televised Cabinet meeting.
We need not look any further into Kennedy’s plan to know this is bullshit. Determining the cause, or more likely causes, of something as widespread as diagnoses for the full spectrum of conditions is a massive undertaking. One that is certainly not going to be concluded in a matter of half of a year merely because Kennedy wills it so.
But it’s actually much worse than that, such that you should already be able to see where this is heading. Kennedy offered few details about his “study”, but we already know two things. First, the organizations that have been leading the charge on autisim advocay aren’t invited to the party.
Kennedy has offered no details on how his study will be different or what researchers will be involved. Leading autism organizations, such as the Autism Society of America, have not been included in discussions about the research, said ASA spokeswoman Kristyn Roth.
Roth said many agree that more research is needed to determine what causes autism, but Kennedy’s approach has raised alarms.
Now combine that with the man that Kennedy has already employed to “study” the cause of autism and you’ll see what’s going on here.
Kennedy has hired David Geier, a man who has repeatedly claimed a link between vaccines and autism, to lead the autism research effort. The hiring of Geier, who the state of Maryland found was practicing medicine on a child without a doctor’s license, was first reported by The Washington Post.
Geier, along with his father before him, have both a checkered past in medicine along with years of promoting a link between autism and vaccines. These are people that have already drawn their conclusions. I expect any study Geier does to point to that link as a conclusion. Expectations counter to that are downright silly. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see what is happening here.
The timeline alone should tell you how unserious this all is, in terms of a scientific approach to answering a very valid medical question: where does autism come from? People living on the spectrum are just that: people. They deserve our respect and our care, not to be treated as mere pawns for a crackpot’s hobbyhorse.
Just know, whatever supposed answers we get in September, this will not be the product of good science.
Filed Under: autism, crackpots, david geier, hhs, rfk jr., vaccines
Comments on “RFK Jr. Commits To Knowing The Cause Of Autism By September Of This Year”
PTSD can produce autism-like symptoms. Watching this jackass eat his next brain worm probably has more effect on causing autism like symptoms than whatever he will claim causes autism.
RFK: I will be biggest bullshitter by September!
Musk: Boy, you ain’t got a single chance against me.
Trump: Hold on guys, and remember who’s the King here!
The reasons autism rates have “skyrocketed” are easy enough to see: We got better at diagnosing autism and we started calling it “autism” instead of saying “Little Timmy is r⸻d”.
RFK’s plan also carried an evil assumption: Autism is “wrong” and needs a “cure”. Combine that with what is sure to be a load of crap disguised as a scientific study that says “vaccines cause autism” and you have the makings of a situation where the director of national health would prefer to see dead children who may not have autism instead of living children with autism.
I hope that son of a bitch likes seeing child-size coffins. He’s going to be seeing a lot more of them on his watch if he has his way.
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Always hate it when autism is viewed as a condition to be “cured”, not accounted for.
Like, what? I have autism, they want me to just stop being myself? Or are they all just too lazy to actually try and understand?
I know the answer.
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It’s like what they like to portray as a sudden explosion if LGBTQ people, if you stop torturing people out if being who they are and they no longer have to live in as much fear, they will express who they are. Same goes with depression, people who would have just died ‘unexpectedly’ in the past are now diagnosed and given help before reaching that point because there are better tools and less stigma.
RFK’s plan is undoubtedly ban as many vaccines as possible, defund autism research that isn’t carried out by ghouls like Autism speaks and punish doctors for giving the diagnosis then ckaiming to have helped, in much the same way republican antivaxxers solved covid by not reporting the stats.
‘Do nothing and look away’ are the guiding principles of US public health now, and that’s horrific.
Re: The anti-vaxxer position: 'I would rather my child be DEAD than autistic.'
RFK’s plan also carried an evil assumption: Autism is “wrong” and needs a “cure”. Combine that with what is sure to be a load of crap disguised as a scientific study that says “vaccines cause autism” and you have the makings of a situation where the director of national health would prefer to see dead children who may not have autism instead of living children with autism.
That really cannot be emphasized enough as it might very well be the most vile and evil part of the anti-vaxxer/pro-plague position, in that even if they were right that vaccines cause autism(they’re not) they should still be pushing for vaccinations because while someone can be autistic and still live a healthy and fulfilling life the same cannot be said for those that are maimed or killed by the diseases that vaccines prevent.
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At around the same time, cases of childhood schizophrenia also fell sharply and became rare rather than common, but I’m sure that has nothing to do with anything. /s
I got vaccinated. I have autism. I don’t have measles. One could kill me outright, the other can be conducive to a long, happy life. I’d bet on the vaccines.
*vaccines do not cause autism, and it’s sad autism is being (and has been) used as a pawn to undermine public health initiatives.
Thank God RFK Jr. is on the job! What would we ever do without his understanding of medical studies. I think we know the cause of ignorance…be in Trump’s circle.
What's with the orange face?
Do RFK Jr and DJT go to the same makeup salon?
Autism IS a condition they both have.
Seems to me it’s about face-color, and not vaccination.
Both are also IDIOTS. Maybe autism is related to being an ORANGE FACE IDIOT.
No idea. I’m not a doctor. Neither are the two orange idiots.
Even if he “proves” vaccines cause autism, (they don’t, end of story), it’s still not a fate worse than death.
And as an autistic person, fuck anyone who says otherwise.
We already know that vaccines don’t cause autism.
Clearly we need to check if brainworms cause fascism, however.
Short timeline == skipping the IRB process
A good description of the IRB (Institutional Review Board) process is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board
Everyone who works in research involving human subjects is familiar with this concept/process because they have to be. And while the time and effort it takes, and the delays it imposes, can all be frustrating, it’s necessary to ensure that the research meets ethical standards.
The IRB process isn’t perfect. But it’s far better than what we had, which was “nothing”. And in this particular instance, the short timeline is a pretty clear signal that they intend to have exactly that: nothing. And if that’s the case, then no researcher should participate in this because it’s a violation of US federal law and of the ethical codes of conduct of every medical organization and every university.
Gosh! I guess no one tried to find out what causes autism before now (/s)
This “commitment” is essentially RFK Jr’s open confession that he intends to “discover” that vaccines cause autism after all, just like he’s always said they do — the heaps of solid evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
'Turns out if you ignore all the real science I was right all along, what a shock!'
Warning bells should have been going off in your head long before RFK Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic for several decades, was confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Once again RFK Jr. and those like him are not vaccine skeptics, they are vaccine deniers. Calling them skeptics is giving them far more credit and credibility than they deserve. That out of the way…
It’s not like actual doctors haven’t spent years if not decades studying both vaccinations and autism and found no link between the two, so the only reason to announce that he’ll ‘find the reason for autism’ within several months is because he refuses to accept the current evidence and findings and plans on ‘discovering’ to his great surprise that he was right all along and vaccines do cause autism.
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Lets be clear…
The denial doesn’t stop at vaccines..
There’s no small number of them who deny the existence of infectious disease.
They say the existence of viruses are is either unproven or a hoax, and that bacteria are all benign, and that the true cause of disease are unspecified toxins in the environment
(Space denial and flat eatherism also overlap in this crowd)
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This. I used to be a vaccine-skeptic, did the research, and subsequently became pro-vaxx. Vaccine deniers, on the other hand, will never change their minds no matter how much evidence is presented to them. Hence Jenny McCarthy’s constant assertions that vaccines damaged her “autistic” son Evan (who actually shows evidence of having had Landau-Kleffner syndrome) despite all the evidence that vaccines have never caused any neurological conditions whatsoever.
I’m sure he’ll know the cause of autism by this fall (hint: he already does). That’s not the same thing as him being correct. To borrow a quote,
“Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”
td countdown clocks?
For all the vacant promises (cure for A) and pending events (court to hear B).
Here’s a huge tell..tha the effort is going to blow up in their face , the entire thing is focused on the case of autism being some kind of enviromental exposure,
Why is it focused on that? Because if it’s environmental expose, it can be prevented. There’s a enviromental cause, it can be laid at the feet of a villain who RFK (and more importantly Trump) can vanquish, and punish for their wicked deeds..
It plays right into their persecution complex, and desire to play the conquering hero..
Neverminding that an evniromental cause could turn out to ve -awkward- depending on the sourse.. The real problem however comes it’s not an environmental exposure… Genetics is likely a huge factor, ( older parents, fathers particulaly cough Trump ,having a strong correlation) and as much as the Christian Culture Warriors love to police sex, if they tried to push some form of anti-neerodivergancy eugenics, it would be a bridge too far, doubly so if it also applied to -them-.
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If RFK finds that environmental exposure is the “cause” of autism, nothing will happen beyond some sort of declaration of intent to conceptually put together a plan for a future administration to perhaps consider putting forth to Congress if they feel like it. Trump gives less of a damn about the environment than he does about the people who live in it, and that will never change even if, say, some company is caught dumping an entire factory’s worth of chemicals into rivers.
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“enviromental exposure” is not just clean air, clean water, endangered species, type environmental issues, It means -anything- that you are exposed to in the world at large that causes a condition. It would include vaccines and their ingredients, drugs, food.. the whole works.
But I’ll agree that even if they found a concrete environmental exposure that causes autism, unless lets them advance one of their culture war issues, they won’t do anything, because that would mean they’d have to -regulate- some industry, and Trump is dead set against that.
Re: Eureka moment
Autism will turn out to be caused by exposure to progressive,liberal, left-leaning ideologies, contaminating the political environment.
Just as a side note..
The Geier’s treatments, the one that led to the father and son being sanctioned, were based on the father’s dubious hypothesis that autism was a result of the interactions, between heavy metals ( i.e aluminum adjuvants in vaccines) , and too much testosterone..
Their treatment, consisted of chelation therapy to remove the heavy metals…
And…
A drugs that’s used for chemical castration
On kids…
So.. drugs that alter sexual development… they’re fine using them recklessly on autistic kids..
Their use in gender affirming care?
That’s right out..
It shows who they care about..
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Indeed, they have tortured and killed small children with this. And anyone who knows how to do chelation therapy for real reasons would be horrified as to how this “therapy” was conducted.
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They could find out here.
What gets me, on top of all this, the call to lower costs and in a statement, RFK stated that he is bringing on hundreds of thousands of doctors and researchers to make the September deadline a reality.
I am sure DOGE did not approve this.
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Watxh as each and every doctor and researcher turns out to have either been fired during covid for not masking around patients or getting vaccinations, a dangerous lunatic running pill mills while ranting online anout demon sperm, a chiropractor, a nutritionist with a line if expensive vitamin D pills to sell, a non practicing vet or dentist, someone with a doctorate in theology that is basically a pastor who paid for the real world version of an X checkmark, or someone with an engineering degree from community college who has decided they’re an expert in all things and has self diagnosed themselves as being on the spectrum and therefore suprr smart and in a position to speak for all of autism because people keep calling them an asshole.
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Oh, no doubt, every last researcher RFK brings on will be a hack. The whole “we’re finding this by September” deadline is the biggest sign that he’s trying to find people who will put together some nominal “research” that aligns with the conclusion for which he’s shopping.
Re: DOGGIE APPROVAL NOT REQUIRED
Good for you for being sure!
I am sure DOGGIE has no approval powers. When the BIG BULLY says “we’ll primary you” (not a thing before THIS bully) and when the LITTLE PUSSIES say “we’ll do whatever you want, Sir! [with tears in their eyes]” and when the Nine Ring-Servants go with it…
That’s that “Constitutional crisis” we’ve been mentioning.
Glad you’re “sure”. I’m “sure” they’re all a bunch of stinky assholes.
I just wish this would stop happening like clockwork every 100 years/4 generations.
People forgot AGAIN how awful dying from easily preventable disease is.
But hey, at least we have the fda to stop people from buying opiated grain alcohol with added radium for their colicky babies! (For now)
Who hasn’t figured out the game-plan here yet?
Take a few minutes to think about it…
Realized it yet? It’s really much more simple and sadistic than you think. It’s not about trying to start a half-assed eugenic program. It’s a distraction.
It’s a distraction from the fact that this administration doesn’t give any shits about the health of the peasants, but it can point to this any time someone points it out and its cult will buy it.
Exposure to things as widespread as herbicide sold in hardware and gardening stores are proven to be much more dangerous to everyone than their warning labels claim almost weekly. But guess what one of the administration’s current pet projects is?
https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/epafacts/facts-rollbacks-of-pollution-rules-will-cost-over-200k-lives/
This is once again pure calculated malice, not incompetence.
Not a huge fan of the ASA – as I recall they’ve been involved in a lot of the sketchy “autism cures” and promoting ABA and so on. (Though it sounds like they’re starting to improve, and actually have some Autistic people involved now, but that’s a pretty low bar)
So normally, I’d be happy to hear that they’re not being involved. But I’m quite willing to bet that the reason they’re not being consulted isn’t because they’re consulting better organizations, but that they’re not consulting anyone even remotely credible.
Wish I was wrong, but… doubt it.
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Me either, and not just because they promote ABA, but because one of their founders, Bernard Rimland, funded the invention of that abusive “therapy”.
72 yr old aspie here. I probably shouldn’t be finding all of this RFK nonsense amusing (because it’s not,really) but I can’t help it. The absurdity of this whole administration makes me laugh. I’ve been told since childhood that I have a tendency to laugh at inappropriate times, so apparently I haven’t grown out of it yet.
There are so many things to check
Lets see.
Lead poisonings Garnered from the Father/mother families from years past.
Wood processing practices that Expose everyone to Chemicals.
Finding out that 1 in the mmr or other Conditions, has a second related Virus wondering around with it, and pops up randomly.
Aint even gotten into genetics OR everything environmental.
Expect shares in Adobe to go up, as to date the #1 method of showing a link between vaccines and autism is to use photoshop on your results.
Okay, Here’s a start, Mr. Secretary. And while you’re at it, could you please explain how a vaccine I didn’t receive until I was 12 months and three days old (the MMR) caused epigenetic alterations in my genome while my mum was pregnant with me?