'I am horrified': Why autistic people say RFK Jr.'s comments on autism are so dangerous

Natalie Stechyson · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 23, 2025 4:22 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

Can autistic radical clasp down jobs, wage taxes or find love?

Many bash — but the question we should beryllium asking, according to waves of advocates, allies and autistic radical voicing their concerns online, is wherefore are we defining a person's worthy astatine all?

Reaction from the autism assemblage has been swift and damning aft U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s press conference past week. In discussing the CDC's new study that autism numbers accrued successful 2022, Kennedy called autism an "epidemic" and claimed it "destroys families."

"These are kids who volition ne'er wage taxes. They'll ne'er clasp a job. They'll ne'er play baseball. They'll ne'er constitute a poem. They'll ne'er spell retired connected a date," helium told reporters.

Kennedy's comments travel arsenic the autism assemblage is already grappling with his assertion that the U.S. volition pinpoint the origin of autism by September, previous repeated pushes of a discredited mentation that blames vaccinations, and much recently, quality that the NIH will make a illness registry to way autistic Americans.

All of this is based connected the content that autism is an avoidable disease, which advocates and aesculapian experts person said is stigmatizing, harmful and raises alarm bells.

And galore of those who are autistic, raising autistic children, oregon both, accidental the existent rhetoric successful the U.S. is frightening for autistic radical everywhere.

"We for truthful agelong person been asking to beryllium adequately supported and accepted, and to alternatively beryllium told that our autism is simply a calamity to our families and nine arsenic a whole, couldn't beryllium further from the truth," said Katherine L'Etang of Springwater, Ont., who is autistic and has ADHD.

"This isn't the rhetoric of an medication that is looking to enactment autistic people," said L'Etang, who was diagnosed erstwhile she was 31.

"At champion they are misinformed and deliberation they are helping, astatine worst, they're looking to destruct autism, which successful turn, fixed autism's familial component, is akin to eliminating autistic radical from existing." 

'Autism doesn't destruct families'

Autism is simply a developmental information that presents a assortment of symptoms that tin see delays successful language, learning and differences successful societal oregon affectional skills.

Their enactment needs tin besides alteration widely. Some autistic people are non-verbal, for instance, oregon otherwise require extensive, ongoing care. Others mostly relation independently, but whitethorn necessitate immoderate support, specified arsenic noise-cancelling headphones successful the classroom, oregon societal coaching.

About 1 successful 50 Canadian children aged 1 to 17 person been diagnosed with autism spectrum upset (ASD), notes the Public Health Agency of Canada, with males being diagnosed astir 4 times much often than females.

Experts person largely attributed a emergence successful cases to improved screening and amended knowing of the condition, reasoning that Kennedy has rejected. 

While determination is nary 1 cause, decades of probe person shown that genetics plays a ample role. The U.S. National Institutes of Health also lists immoderate imaginable hazard factors, specified arsenic prenatal vulnerability to pesticides oregon aerial pollution, utmost prematurity oregon debased commencement weight, definite maternal wellness problems oregon parents conceiving astatine an older age.

L'Etang's children, ages 5 and seven, are besides autistic and have ADHD, with varying enactment needs. She documents their experiences, and advocates for herself and her family, to her astir 120,000 followers connected Instagram.

And she's created respective posts successful effect to Kennedy, including 1 wherever she writes, "Autism doesn't destruct families.... Lack of enactment and services does."

His comments aren't conscionable harmful, L'Etang says, they also take distant from truthful overmuch of the progress in the neurodiversity movement, which acknowledges autism arsenic a encephalon quality that has existed for centuries.

Division by ability

Kennedy's remarks besides disagreement the assemblage by ability, L'Etang says. Although galore autistic people do wage taxes and person jobs, his comments deem those who cannot execute those tasks arsenic "worthless," she says.

"Their lives are worthy careless of however overmuch enactment they need," she said, adding that children merit to unrecorded a dignified beingness careless of however "productive" they are or whether they tin unrecorded alone.

That's a sentiment echoed by Kingston, Ont., writer Julie M. Green, who wrote Tuesday successful her Substack, The Autistic Mom, that a person's publication to nine extends acold beyond their earning power. That benignant of rhetoric "steers america person toward supremacy and eugenics," she wrote.

"As an autistic big and a genitor to a young autistic person, the existent communicative terrifies me," wrote Green.

"Autistic lives substance — each of them. Not simply those of radical who are capable to clasp down a occupation and wage taxes (which, for the record, galore autistic folks bash — and which, besides for the record, galore neurotypicals don't)."

WATCH | Should autistic kids person their ain schools? 

The harm of misinformation

One of L'Etang's biggest concerns astir Kennedy's comments is that it volition marque vulnerable, exhausted parents much apt to autumn prey to autism misinformation, she said, adding that societal media is rife with it.

For instance, aesculapian experts person linked the resurgence successful measles cases with the emergence of vaccine hesitancy — including the mendacious thought that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism — even though this assertion has been debunked by galore studies.

Meanwhile, a petition has been circulating urging Amazon to propulsion a caller publication that advises bleach enemas to "cure" autistic children. The book, written by a homeopath, promotes the "CD protocol," which some the FDA and Health Canada person warned tin origin life-threatening broadside effects.

And according to Google Trends, U.S. searches for "can autism beryllium cured?" person risen sharply since astir April 10 — close astir the clip Kennedy vowed to pinpoint the "cause" of autism by September.

"Normal" astatine immoderate the outgo is not the connection we request to beryllium sending close now, said L'Etang.

 "If we're intent connected curing and cause, tin we absorption connected cancer? I americium horrified."