An accomplished pediatrician clapped back at Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bogus claims about autism during an interview on CNN Wednesday, highlighting a Netflix reality show that follows people’s love lives with the condition.
Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, picked apart a handful of statements Kennedy made during his first news conference as health secretary where he described autism as an “epidemic.”
Throughout his presser, Kennedy largely insinuated that autism was “preventable” and caused by an environmental toxin. He also announced his intent to spearhead his own research into its prevalence.
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“There have been literally billions of dollars spent over the last 15 years to look at the cause or causes of autism,” Offit disputed on CNN. “We’ve learned that there’s a huge genetic component that has to do with genes that are expressed early in pregnancy… We know that there are certainly maternal health issues like diabetes or obesity or psychiatric disorders.”
“And we know that there are infections that can occur in utero, like a cytomegalovirus infection, rubella infection. What all of those three things have in common is that they will affect you before you’re born,” he continued. “[Kennedy] is of the belief that once you’re born, there are environmental toxins that are somehow affecting that for which he has no evidence. He’s just making it up.”
Experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have widely attributed an uptick in autism to better understanding of the spectrum disorder and better screening processes to diagnose it. While the cause of autism isn’t fully understood, research has largely suggested that genetics may play a role.
During his news conference, Kennedy described increased rates of autism diagnoses as “catastrophic” and a force that “destroys our greatest resource, which are children.”
“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,” he continued.
Offit rebuked this particular quote from Kennedy and deemed it hyperbolic.
“He sort of overdramatizes this, you know, that they’ll never pay taxes, that they’ll never love again. I mean, I don’t know if you ever saw that two-year series Love on the Spectrum. That was a reality show,” Offit said. “But they can love again, so I’m not sure why he dramatizes it the way he does.” Love on the Spectrum is a “romantic documentary series” on Netflix where seven adults with autism navigate love and dating.
The pediatrician also criticized the way Kennedy seems to be approaching his anticipated autism research, arguing that he “already seems to know what he’s going to find.”
For his part, Kennedy said he hopes to announce a “series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing [autism]” soon, and listed factors like mold, pesticides, medicines, and ultrasounds.
“It’s certainly an enormous level of hubris,” Offit countered. “It’s as if he’s going to come in and with money that he now has, he’s going to figure out something that no one has figured out in the last 20 years when there’s hundreds and hundreds of studies that have looked at the cause or causes of autism.”
“I think one can only conclude that he has in his mind that there is an environmental toxin, or there are environmental toxins, which he is going to prove. But that’s not how scientists work,” he continued. “The way scientists work is they formulate a hypothesis, and then they discover what they find. He already seems to know what he’s going to find, which is worrisome.”
Though the pediatrician clarified that he’s “fine” with Kennedy wanting to pursue research into autism, he stressed that Kennedy “has to be open minded to the fact that he might find something that he didn’t think was true.”
The health secretary’s comments angered a handful of medical professionals Wednesday.
Dr. Éric Fombonne, a longtime autism researcher and professor emeritus at Oregon Health & Science University, told The New York Times that Kennedy’s claims were “ridiculous.”
Dr. Joshua Anbar, an assistant teaching professor at Arizona State University who helped the CDC on its most recent report on autism, also told the Times: “Autism is not an infectious disease. So there aren’t preventive measures that we can take.”
The president and CEO of the Autism Society of America, Christopher Banks, also criticized Kennedy’s comments in a statement shared by CNN Wednesday, noting: “Claiming that Autism is ‘preventable’ is not science based, and places unnecessary blame on people, parents and families.”
“Autism is not a chronic disease, nor a childhood disease, it is a lifelong developmental condition; it is not an epidemic, nor should it be compared to the Covid-19 pandemic, and using language like that perpetuates falsehoods, stigma and stereotypes,” Banks continued. “The prevalence rates tell us that there is progress when it relates to improved screening and diagnostics, AND it emphasizes the need for more robust, comprehensive research and data rooted in credible methodologies.”
