There is no evidence to support the president’s assertions about autism. But they exploit fears that already come with pregnancy
Robert F Kennedy Jr continued his futile search for a single pharmaceutical cause of autism on Monday, when the Trump administration claimed that distorted recent studies and misstated scientific evidence to allege a link between women’s Tylenol use during pregnancy and the development of autism in children. Kennedy has long spoken with disturbing disgust about autistic people, claiming at one press conference that autistic children “destroy families” and “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date.” He had previously pledged to find the cause of autism by this month.
As part of his apparent quest to eliminate this vast and varied group of people – who do, in fact, pay taxes, hold jobs, play baseball, write poems, go on dates, and function as beloved and caring members of functional families – Kennedy has already sought to restrict access to common vaccines. In June, he fired every member of the advisory committee on immunization practices, an influential group of vaccine experts whose recommendations had long shaped policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In place of the experts, he reconstituted the panel with a number of vaccine critics and cranks, whose incompetence has led to chaotic meetings and bizarrely changing vaccine recommendations. Donald Trump has recently joined his health secretary in casting aspersions on childhood vaccines – safe and effective treatments that have saved countless lives and are among the more wonderful miracles of human innovation. “It’s too much liquid,” the president said of the early childhood immunizations on Monday. “Too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number. The size of this thing, when you look at it.”
