WASHINGTON (AP) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan Wednesday to use medical data and records from people on Medicaid and Medicare to help study autism although experts say it’s unlikely to help reveal the condition’s root causes.
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The program will involve a data sharing agreement between the National Institutes of Health, the government’s health research arm, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has access to claims data from nearly 150 million Americans across the country.
“We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” Kennedy said in a statement.
The agreement will be “consistent with applicable privacy laws to protect Americans’ sensitive health information,” the HHS statement said. The health department did not respond to additional questions about the program.
Using the data, the agency said researchers will focus on autism diagnosis trends, health outcomes from medical or behavioral outcomes, access to care based on demographics and geography as well the economic burden of autism on families and health care systems.
The problem is that this isn’t the kind of data needed to answer questions about autism’s causes, said Helen Tager-Flusberg, professor emerita at Boston University who leads a new Coalition of Autism Scientists pushing back on Kennedy’s characterizations of the condition.
“Enough research has been done at this point to know there is no simple magic bullet,” she said, cautioning that this type of dataset won’t help with the type of research most needed — into genetics and other prenatal, preconception and early infancy factors.
Kennedy has directed the health department to undertake a far-reaching research effort to identify the causes of autism, a complex disorder that impacts the brain. Announcing his plans last month, Kennedy said he plans to provide answers as to what causes autism by September. He has since said the department will determine at least “some” of the causes.
His research directive comes as autism rates in the U.S. are rising, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releasing a report that an estimated 1 in 31 U.S. children have autism, a marked increase from 2020. Scientists and researchers who study autism have said that increase in diagnoses is the result of increased awareness about the disorder, especially among people who exhibit milder symptoms of autism.
Kennedy has rejected that explanation in public appearances, instead describing autism as a “preventable disease” that is caused by environmental factors.
Autism is not considered a disease but a complex brain disorder. Those who have spent decades researching autism have found no single cause, although genetic factors are associated with it. In addition to genetics, scientists have identified various possible factors, including the age of a child’s father, the mother’s weight and whether she had diabetes or was exposed to certain chemicals.
Kennedy’s comments have sparked alarm among autism researchers, who fear he will use the study to support a discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic has pushed that theory before, although decades of research has found no link between vaccines and autism. President Donald Trump has also suggested that vaccines could be to blame for autism rates.
The new platform that HHS plans to launch around autism will be a “pilot,” that will be used to study chronic conditions and treatments, the agency said.
It’s literally unbelievable how every time anyone will bring up the cause of autism they will discredit right away that it’s not the vaccines, and it’s sickening how people just buy this, you just need one ounce of brains to understand that if you do not know the cause you cannot discredit anything, and the fact that they jump up all the time that it’s not the vaccines just makes me think after years of the corrupt CDC fauci media etc. that it just might be that.
Thank you Hashem and Thank you Secretary Kennedy!
USA is now the # 1 developed country for Obesity, Chronic Disease & Autism with 1/31 cases avg, 1/20 boys in many states!Anything we did until now clearly hasn’t worked. For all those heartless idiots dissing him.. Ribono Shel Olam, these are our children & grandchildren!!!
“What would it take, to convince you that vaccines are definitely not the cause of autism?”
A: I’m not 100% convinced yet myself to say: definitely. However it would take a real transparent scientific study to counter the scores of anecdotal parents to dismiss them as pure coincidence. That would be a RCT (double blind*) study with actual REAL PLACEBOS (=pure unadulterated saline, not againts other similar vaccine shtick they’ve been pulling off and passing as research) as the Control Group. Each group must have over 1000 infant/toddlers from the different segments of the population as it’s typical (1-3K) Phase3 trial stages. The studies and full methodology must fully tranparent and openly published without any personnel involvement and certainly no funding from Pharma/OEMs to eliminate any skewed conflicts of interest. *Double-blind will likely be difficult to achieve as parents feel strongly on both sides, but you wont find a shortage of willing “vaxer & anti-vaxer” parent participants. This would take probably over 3 years. Personally, I will be very PLEASANTLY surprised if it’s proven not to be the multiple repeated inoculation assault …and if it indeed is, I’ll still look forward for them to build a “better & safer mousetrap” and scheduling guidleines. After all, why wouldn’t I want a quick fix to offer inmunization from potential pitfall? There’s no bigger simcha than to be matir these sfeikos. The 2nd thing would: Pharma Liability. Undo the Regan Act exemptions for all profitable medical interventions so Pharma can actually have real skin in the came. The distand 3rd would be: Free Uncensored Press: USA joining 99% of countries already banning Pharma media ads so we can have true & objective investigate journalism. There’s a 4th but this is already TL. [Mostly Reposted from Moishe K’s thread.]
I Hope this wont affect ABA agencies
Why won’t Mr. Kennedy address the issue with our beloved government dumping poisonous chemtrails upon us??? Is that discussion taboo amongst the handful of wealthy white elitist pigs that control this country?
Again, if we use the same diagnostic criteria to test five year olds today as we do adults, we would be discovering many wrongly diagnosed “retards” who are now 40,50,60, with autism. Fact is, they don’t exist in the numbers that autism exists today. So this is not a disease of diagnosis. This is an actual tragedy.
The most likely main cause of profound autism is survival of those who would not have survived in the past. I don’t know why people deny it. There’s a huge correlation between profound autism and adverse events occurring during birth (including premature birth), often requiring intervention from modern medicine which wouldn’t have existed in the past. And then there’s the categorical placement in which a child’s primary diagnosis is more likely to be autism now, when in the past many of these children would only have been diagnosed with mental retardation and not autism. This is mainly because in the past, the approach was to institutionalize, not to integrate.
Rabbi Moshe Tendler a posek and a bioligist said it is because of metziz b’peh in the frum community.
“studies” mandated by opinionated political appointees are a total waste of time and money. just like kennedy.
Ask anyone on their 50s how many kids in their class were just not right or vild to the point that they had to be home schooled. This is not even taking into account kids who were so severe that they never made it to the school system. These kids always existed and thank God they are recognized and helped. ( not to say we shouldn’t investigate but RFK is the wrong shliach IMHO)