RFK jr says he will reveal cause of autism?

[Parisfranc]

Has anyone seen this?

He claims he will reveal what it is in September.

Not sure I believe it to be honest and I have a feeling whatever answer he gives won't be definitive but will blame a whole range of possible things. I've done a Google search for those who haven't heard anything about it and there are lots of articles but I always see people get attacked based on which source they give so don't know which ones to link to?

He’s batshit, dangerous and unhinged.

Well said. Autism is only a disability for most people because the world is set up for NT people. Yes, there are autistic people with extremely complex and high care needs (like my 23 year old dd who will never live independently)

But a lot of us would be able to have full time jobs all the time without burning out if the environment didn’t harm our sensory profile and cause extreme stress. Not that I’m saying ability to work is what makes a person valuable.

I didn't say ALL people with ADHD would make good farmers, did i? Or that all people with ADHD thrived before the modern era.

I described how a set of traits, which are common to neurodivergent people, and are a hindrance in a modern school setting, could be significant advantages in a different setting, and it's the setting/society that should be changed, not the person.

Just because your interpretation of your own ADHD is that it's negative, doesn't mean everyone else feels the same. It certainly has advantages. When those advantages are embraced and the person is able to harness them to their full ability.

He’ll blame vaccinations to bolster his roll back of the American vaccination programme and the maga fans will lap it up, putting all children at risk. He is incredibly stupid and dangerous

Indeed. I am beginning to think that ‘neurotypical’, as we understand it currently,
probably doesn’t exist and that autism/ADHD may simply be cognitive styles that one day we will measure like we do the 16 personality types - ie, we’ll be able to measure cognitive and social functioning to establish which ‘type’ you are and use it to guide careers, learning and work environments, and even relationship and communication styles to ensure every person is supported in academic and employment setting to perform optimally.

This is not to say that some autistic/ND people don’t also have other co-existing conditions that can be very debilitating and life-limiting… but so can non-autistic people.

I'm expecting something along the lines of it's the vaccines causing the autism. Then an announcement that to ensure the safety of vaccines going forward, a US Medical Ethics Board will be set up spearheaded by his close personal friend, Mr. Andrew Wakefield.

Of all the things that won't happen in September, this is top of the list.

Don’t be silly. We don’t want it not really looked into and then used as chum in the water for Trump’s anti-vax base.

Actual research and facts and treatments? Absolutely. I have an autistic child.

But if you think this is anything close to that…I’m sorry but you are very very ignorant on this one.

I wouldn’t take him seriously op. He has no medical qualifications - like all of the orange one’s staff. They are just being used for the maga agenda. Look at every person he has leading state departments - all under qualified & some not qualified at all.
It will inevitably be some grift or a chance to marginalise (eugenics-style) a specific demographic.

You've answered your own question. He's an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist. Where, exactly, do you think he's going to get his information from - the official authorities and scientifically proven data, none of which he believes, or tripe being fed to him by the people he likes to think are right?

He is an evil misogynist who should not be anywhere near health.

The guy is a weapons grade idiot and to be ignored at every possible opportunity.

Awful man, he can fuck right off to the far side of fuck, and then fuck off just a little more.

JFC where did it go wrong for this man?!?

I think they have a point actually. This is something that irritates me hugely with my teenager, quoting something off the internet as if it’s gospel. I think if we want to have reasoned debate/ conversations about anything then it’s helpful to learn the facts and the history so you can have an informed opinion.

So many people now get their news from social media. In this post fact environment it seems more important for people with platforms to just repeat the same misinformation than for it to be objectively factual.

link between neurodivergence and Neanderthal genes, which we all have in varying percentages.

One community with relatively elevated rates of autism diagnoses are Somali-heritage immigrants in Minnesota. Being of African heritage, they would have relatively low % Neanderthal DNA.

It's a myth put around by anti-vaxxers that publiic health officials are profiteering from vaccine delivery. Public health studies look for side effects from vaccine constantly.

Diagnoses have risen because the definition has expanded & people are looking harder for autism than they used to. Autism used to be rare and very debilitating (say before about 1980) because you couldn't be autistic if not severely affected. Now it's got a huge range of manifestations, it's a family of sometimes subtle presentations. The diagnostic criteria changed is main reason we see more of it.

It's a myth that important people "know" but are hiding the causes of autism.

I didn't realise RFK embraced miasma theory over germ theory. Explains a lot obviously.

Meanwhile USA experiences increasingly large and increasingly frequent measles outbreaks, including death of a kid with measles. That is agreed fact, not myth. CDC info released while RFK has been in power.

I think about this a lot. You read a Jane Austen novel — and I often wonder if this is precisely the appeal of Austen for a subset of her fans — and the world she describes is extremely quiet. A lot of sitting around silently or on your own or walking or riding across fields to see if maybe your neighbours are home for tea, which some of the time they wouldn’t be. Then, if they are, social behaviour is highly rules based and generally quite accommodating of introverted or shy behaviour (less so extroversion). Clearly it wouldn’t have worked well for everyone, or everyone with diagnoses of autism, but I would guess there is a cohort of people who find the constant noise and stimulation and the quite substantial social demands of modern society— which also rewards extroversion and spontaneity — very, very difficult and who therefore have diagnoses of neurodevelopmental disorders, yet would have been considered perfectly normal in previous, less hectic eras. I mean, if you consider the level of stimulation and social demand our brains evolved to manage, and which pre 1960 most people still experienced, it’s easy to imagine the modern world is simply not bearable for some.

You're focusing very much on schools, work, physical and system environments that are modern though

Humans are social animals, there are social norms, many of which are universal and although they vary to some degree culturally, they're still fairly similar across the species.

Some, if not the majority of people with ASD in particular struggle for example with empathy, social processing, sensory issues and social communication. Rigid black and white thinking is very common.

Those traits would stand someone out and often make them socially and romantically undesirable, a social outcast, disliked at the extreme end.

There are some who no doubt in ancient times, tudor times and Victorian times who will have thrived depending on their role and status in society. People like to throw around that Einstein must have been ASD as was Newton perhaps. But these are outliers, managed to find a way to utilise their focus and obsession etc. The average Bob or Harry trying to navigate through social structures with much more rigid rules for social engagement than now may well have struggled. To be isolated would have meant not eating, not working, not having any way to manage society around you. Modern times conversely have a lot more isolationist and individualist tones which mean some of that is easier for someone who struggles with social integration.

A very middle class, well off take on society though. Genteel I think is the phrase

Read Hubbub for a snapshot of what people lived with day to day.

And just to add quite honestly I read those sorts of novels and think that life must have been exhausting, this or that visit, this or that activity, this or that negotiation.

It is so weird that people are reacting to this in this way - why wouldn't you want to know why so many children are autistic? It is not a measurement thing, you can go into any school and see there are usually 2 autistic children in every class, that is different, and something in the environment must be causing it.

As far as I understand it, RFK has looked at the food systems (all the chemicals etc.), air quality, enviromental factors like diet (UPF etc) , and medications including vaccines. It is a multi factorial assessment.

I fail to see the issue with this. If I were raising children again, I would see this as an absolute positive to be more informed about what raises the risk of autism - whether people have a genetic predisposition to it or not isn't really relevant, because the risk needs to be interacting with something in the environment, and I for one, would love to know more about what that is

Because you are framing autism as a disability, rather than as a ‘difference’ or a divergence from the norm (hence ‘neurodivergent’).

Not everyone with autism IS disabled by it - of the dozens of people in my extended family who are ASD/ADHD/dyslexic or ND in some form or other, we have doctors, ex RAF flight lieutenants, a NASA consultant, lawyers, stable owners as well as one young person who struggled so profoundly that they never completed their education and lives at home with mum and one of mine who needed extensive support to overcome very significant comorbid MH issues but is, nonetheless, finally about to go to university (a little late at 20) and has been totally capable of holding down PT student jobs once supported.

My family members would not want to be ‘cured’ of their autism, or to screen out it’s existence in utero because they don’t see a ‘risk’ of autism - the word ‘risk’ implying dire consequences. The majority of people with an autism/ND diagnosis - because of the much wider constellation of presentations that are now grouped under the autism umbrella/spectrum - are perfectly functioning members of society.

If they werent disabled by it and were perfectly abley functioning members of society then they wouldnt receive a diagnosis. Its one of the criteria that it significantly impacts on your life

I do understand where you are coming from - however it doesn't make sense in the overall picture of society. If there is something clearly environmental about why people are developing autism, why wouldn't you want to know? It's like saying you know that the drug thalidamide causes deformities but we love our thalidamide child as they are. Of course you do, but you wouldn't take the drug again if you had morning sickness.

Not quite - how that criteria is understood and applied is clinically decided by professionals, not PPs on MN.

Being ‘perfectly able to function’ is not the same as the clinical requirement of evidence of ‘significant impairment in social, occupational and other important areas of functioning’ (NAS website). The fact that many of my family struggle in marital/long term relationships (so have multiple divorces and difficult parent/child dynamics), or struggle in workplace relationships such that they often change (lose) jobs means they are impaired… it doesn’t however mean they aren’t brilliant at their jobs or [im]perfectly able to function in chosen careers - it just means there needs to be accommodations made or understanding on the part of employers/work colleagues and romantic partners. An ASD diagnosis should be useful information that enables and facilitates functioning, not a de-limiting cage.

I don’t think anyone objects to research into autism including its possible causes. Scientists have been researching and will continue to do research on autism and ND.
What people absolutely object to is RFK’s batshit anti-science agenda. His policies have no basis on reality. Do you think that claiming that the cause of autism would be found by September was the musings of a sane person? Have you heard him speak about autism and other chronic health conditions and public health issues? The connection between autism and vaccines was debunked years ago. There is no link. But RFK keeps poking that bear.
He’s going to be responsible for a lot of deaths in the US and worldwide. He should be locked up.

Sorry but that’s an appalling analogy. Thalidamide babies were the result of malpractice and thus preventable - it was caused by extrinsic medical intervention. The evidence is that autism is genetic (as can be seen by its prevalence in my extended family over at least 4 generations, with diverse members born in S Africa, Europe and some from India/Pakistan). Correlation studies suggest that factors such as the age of the father may impact the incidence of autism but in my own families, multi generation experience of autism this is not a factor.

It is very clear looking at biographies, literature and history that autism/neurodiversity appears to have always existed naturally within the population. It is not due to GM foods, pollution (unless there is an as yet unnoted rise in ASD in Victorian Britain or modern day China?), increased UPFs etc - it is now merely better understood and we have tools to identify it (and understand it) that we previously did not.