They say autism is rising because of “better diagnosis”—but RFK Jr. just blew that narrative wide open. He brought the hard data and dropped one undeniable truth the denialists can’t explain.
HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. appeared on Hannity Thursday evening and unloaded on the predominant autism narrative. It started with a bombshell reveal from Kennedy’s own childhood.
Hannity asked: “What was the number when you were a kid—and what do you think is going on?”
Kennedy replied: “There’s really good data on that.”
That’s when Kennedy sounded the alarm on what’s happening now—and why it’s so catastrophic. He said the rise isn’t just in frequency—it’s in severity.
“Two years ago, it was 1 in 36. The CDC data we released this week shows 1 in 31,” Kennedy said.
“The worst state is California,” Kennedy continued, “which actually has the best collection methodologies. So they actually, probably reflect what we’re seeing nationwide.”
“In California, it’s 1 in every 20 kids, and 1 in every 12.5 boys,” he explained.
Even worse, he said the numbers are likely underreported in minority communities. And for many kids, the symptoms are devastating:
“About 25% of the population of those kids with autism, about 25% of them are nonverbal, nontoilet trained,” Kennedy explained.
“They have all of these stereotypical behaviors, the head banging, biting, toe walking, stimming, and that population is growing higher and higher.”
“It’s becoming a larger percentage, so we’re seeing many more cases that are now linked to severe intellectual disability.”
He says it’s a glaring red warning sign—and it’s past time to start acting on it.
And this was the moment that Kennedy took a flamethrower to the media narrative about autism. He shattered the core excuse we’ve all been fed—that this epidemic isn’t real, that it’s just a change in how we count it.
He’s not buying it.
“The media has bought into this industry canard, this mythology, that we’re just seeing more autism because we’re noticing it more. We’re better at recognizing it or there’s been changing diagnostic criteria.”
But the scientific literature, Kennedy said, says otherwise.
“There is study after study in the scientific literature going back, and they decided that the literature going back says decades that says that’s not true.”
He then cited a major investigation by California’s own lawmakers.
“In fact, the California legislature… asked the Mind Institute at UC Davis to look exactly at that topic. They [asked], is it real or are we just noticing it more? The Mind Institute came back and said, ‘Absolutely this is a real epidemic. This is something we’ve never seen before.’”
And he made it painfully clear:
“Anybody with common sense, Sean, would notice that, because the autism—this epidemic is only happening in our children. It’s not happening in people who are our age. And if it was better recognition, you’d see it in 70-year-old men.”
But we don’t.
And after laying out the data, dismantling the media narrative, and exposing the severity of the crisis, Kennedy concluded with a clarion call to get to the bottom of this epidemic.
That’s why he says it’s time to dig deeper—leave no stone unturned, and we may have answers sooner than you think.
“President Trump asked me to find out what’s causing it,” he told Hannity.
“And I am approaching that agnostically. We are looking at everything, we are going to do, we’re going to be very transparent in how we design the studies.”
To get real answers, he’s farming the research out to top institutions across the country—with full transparency from day one.
“We’re going to farm the studies out to 15 premier research groups from all over the country. And we’re going to be transparent about our protocols, about the data sets, and then every study will have to be replicated.”
The list of possible factors is long—and nothing is being ruled out, Kennedy explained.
“We’re going to look at mold. We’re going to look at the age of parents. We’re going to look at food and food additives. We’re going to look at pesticides and toxic exposures. We’re going to look at medicines. We’re going to look at vaccines. We’re going to look at everything.”
When asked how long it would take, Kennedy didn’t miss a beat.
“I think we’ll have some preliminary answers in six months. It will take us probably a year from then before we can have definitive answers because a lot of the studies will not go out until the end of the summer.”
For the first time in decades, someone is asking the hard questions—and demanding real answers.
This time, nothing is off-limits.
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During a Senate hearing yesterday, Kennedy noted that a CDC study found a 260% higher rate of autism in boys who got the MMR vaccine.
A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report commissioned by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. indicates Tylenol use during pregnancy is one factor contributing to the U.S. autism epidemic, according to media reports.
Sources close to the matter said low levels of folate as well as the use of the acetaminophen-based drug will be named in the forthcoming HHS autism report as among potential causal factors behind autism.
Kennedy, secretary of the HHS, told Fox and Friends last week that his agency was about to reveal causes of autism and make government regulation recommendations accordingly. His remarks suggest that mothers’ Tylenol use and folate deficiency will be among a multitude of factors cited in the HHS report.
“There is not a single cause, there are many, many — there’s an aggregation of causes,” said Kennedy. “We are now developing sufficient evidence to ask for regulatory action on some of those, or recommendations.”
He noted the documented explosion in autism rates, which have gone from less than one in 10,000 in 1970 to one case for every 31 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even if autism is over-diagnosed, a significant portion of these children are severely impaired, indicating a real, notable increase in the disorder.
“Most cases now are severe,” Kennedy said in April while discussing the results of a CDC autism survey. He explained that “25% of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are non-verbal, non-toilet trained,” and have other dysfunctional behaviors typical of severe autism like head-banging.
During a Senate hearing on Thursday, Kennedy also pointed to a link between the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
“In 2002, CDC did an internal study of Fulton County, Georgia, children, and looked at children who got the MMR vaccine on time and compared those to kids who got them later. The data from that study showed that black boys who got the vaccine on time had a 260% greater chance of getting an autism diagnosis than children who waited,” Kennedy explained.
“The chief scientist on that, Dr. William Thompson, the senior vaccine safety scientist at CDC, was ordered to come into a room with four other co-authors by his boss, Frank DeStefano, who’s the head of the Immunization Safety Branch, in order to destroy that data,” said Kennedy.
This story was divulged by CDC whistleblower Dr. William Thompson, one of the co-authors who intentionally omitted the 2004 study data showing the MMR vaccine-autism connection in black children.
While an evolving, broadening definition of autism may contribute to increased diagnoses, Kennedy believes “environmental toxins” have contributed to a full-blown epidemic of autism.
“We’re going to look at vaccines, but we’re going to look at everything. Everything is on the table, our food system, our water, our air, different ways of parenting, all the kind of changes that may have triggered this epidemic,” the HHS head previously told Fox News.
“It is an epidemic,” Kennedy insisted. “Epidemics are not caused by genes. Genes can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin.”
“We know that it is an environmental toxin that is causing this cataclysm,” said Kennedy, “and we are going to identify it.”
Officials at the the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced a partnership Wednesday to research “root causes of autism spectrum disorder.”
As part of the project, NIH will build a real-world data platform enabling advanced research across claims data, electronic medical records and consumer wearables, according to the agencies.
“We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “We’re pulling back the curtain – with full transparency and accountability – to deliver the honest answers families have waited far too long to hear.”
CMS and NIH will start this partnership by establishing a data use agreement under CMS’ Research Data Disclosure Program focused on Medicare and Medicaid enrollees with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder or ASD.
“This partnership is an important step in our commitment to unlocking the power of real-world data to inform public health decisions and improve lives,” NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said. “Linking CMS claims data with a secure real-world NIH data platform, fully compliant with privacy and security laws, will unlock landmark research into the complex factors that drive autism and chronic disease – ultimately delivering superior health outcomes to the Americans we serve.”
Researchers will focus on autism diagnosis trends over time, health outcomes from specific medical and behavioral interventions, access to care and disparities by demographics and geography and the economic burden on families and healthcare systems, according to a news release.
