Robert F. Kennedy Jr has declared war on autism. Unfortunately, he’s aiming at the wrong targets. The conspiracy-lovin’ Secretary of Health with the worm-eaten brain is convinced that “toxins” may cause autism, including mold, food additives, pesticides, air pollution, ultrasound scans and, notably, vaccines.
Kennedy’s beliefs run counter to all evidence produced by the scientific community. Their position is that the roots of autism are complex and currently unknown, though they are theorized to be a mix of genetic predispositions and unknown environmental influences. But a simple thing like expertise, data, and evidence isn’t going to slow Kennedy down.
It’s just been announced that his new autism study will begin by amassing private records of American citizens from across federal and commercial databases to create what’s being billed as a “disease registry” that will be used to “track Americans with autism”. Presumably, this database will include names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and addresses, and the idea has struck fear into people who worry it’ll eventually become weaponized against them.
So. Uhm. Apparently. they’re launching a new “disease registry” to track autistic people.
— elle (emergency in pinned📍) (@scretladyspider) April 22, 2025
read that again.
They are launching.
a new disease registry.
to track autistic people.
a DISEASE REGISTRY. to TRACK. AUTISTIC PEOPLE. https://t.co/8osz37Vp1e
The disease registry’s existence is being justified for financial reasons, with National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya explaining that the government doesn’t want to have to pay to access private healthcare databases.
He went on to outline some of the other things that’ll be recorded for each individual, including medication records from major pharmacy chains, patient genome data, claims from insurance companies, and smartwatch and fitness tracker data.
Bhattacharya is already in damage control mode over this, claiming that only 10 and 20 outside groups of researchers will be granted access to the data, that they won’t be able to download it to their personal computers, and there will be ill-defined “state of the art protections” to ensure confidentiality.
Excuse me if I’m not exactly reassured by this. Elon Musk’s DOGE goons are still running rampant through federal databases, raising continual and serious questions about foreign intelligence accessing citizens’ personal data. And, even beyond that, the notion of “tracking” people with autism in itself sounds sinister.
And all this in service of a scientific report intended for a man with a deep distrust of medical science and some seriously strange ideas about reality? A man who recently said made the disturbing proclamation “These are kids who 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, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”? Americans with autism, watch out, the future is looking grim.
Published: Apr 22, 2025 09:14 am