Posted on 06/02/2025 1:19:37 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON (AP) — Emery Eversoll and her mother shared a good laugh when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that some autistic children will never write poems.
The 16-year-old’s bedroom is full of notebooks featuring her verses. Sometimes, she quietly recites poetry to get through an outburst of anger. Her mother began suspecting she may have autism, in part, because she had memorized every word from a favorite book by age 2.
Still, this Kansas family is optimistic about Kennedy’s plans to launch a broad-based study of what causes autism, the complex developmental disorder that impacts the brain and causes delays in language or learning, social withdrawal and an unusual need for routine. Kennedy has vowed to identify some of the causes of autism, which has been studied for decades, by September.
Kennedy has said autism ”destroys families.” He said children with autism “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.”
His comments and his plan to swiftly study its causes, have splintered a community of millions of people living with autism. For some, they were an overdue recognition of the day-to-day difficulties for families with autistic loved ones. To others, Kennedy deeply misrepresented the realities of their disability, provoking concern about his ability to handle a sweeping assessment of the disorder.
Some worry, too, that Kennedy has spent years suggesting that vaccines might cause autism, despite decades of scientific research showing no such link.
Ohio father Scott Copeland, himself autistic and a parent to two autistic children, doesn’t trust that Kennedy will conduct a legitimate study.
“It’d be like standing up and saying you’re going to have the cure for cancer...”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
If your kid gets diagnosed with autism they get a government disability check every month.
Subsidize something and you get more of it.
He said SOME autistic children will never write poems. They found one autistic child that wrote poems. They did not disprove his statement.
It destroyed my aunt her son is 45 yrs old living in a group home he can’t speak one word the state takes care of him it’s sad every week she goes and visits him he knows who she is but he can’t say a word he’s severely autistic
Since when did politicians like RFK, Jr. become doctors and medical experts?
The only policy that will work in the long run is GETTING GOV’T OUT OF unconstitutional commandeering of healthcare. There will ALWAYS be corruption and death from gov’t healthcare.
Dang man, people need to fight for their own survival against this utter and illegal nonsense instead of lying down like cattle at the slaughterhouse.
Sorry for your aunt’s troubles. I have no doubt that autism is devastating. My point was that the definition of autism has been so expanded that it is not an exaggeration to say that we are all “on the spectrum” now.
The key to science is controls for some subjects.
I would imagine that autism is almost unheard of in the Amish and Mennonite communities.
If that is correct that gives us a starting point.
Good friend of mine has a severely autistic son that they had to institutionalize after he hit puberty. He destroyed just about everything you can imagine in their home.
My sister worked with autistic children in Oregon and she would tell stories but she did it for about 20 years.
Autism Spectrum is about the left putting labels(Like they love to do for literally everything) on human behavior. It’s dehumanizing like everything else they do.
These jackasses try to claim the Thomas Jefferson was Autistic for pete’s sake....
As can be expected from the AP this is a hit piece on RFK and the Trump administration.
The following statement:
“Doctors and medical experts have attributed the rise in autism cases — about 1 in 31 U.S. kids are now diagnosed with it — to increased awareness, especially around milder forms of the disorder.”
Increased awareness accounts for at most 1/3 of the rise in autism, some studies put it closer to 20%. The rise would not be continuing after 30 years because it’s well known in school screening programs. It should be at a plateau but it’s not.
I’ve studied the vaccine link and there is no evidence to link vaccines to autism because it has not been properly studied. If you don’t want to find something and you’re not willing to look (”settled science”) then you’re not going to find it.
It is a definite possibility in cases of regressive autism, where a child has normal development and then backslides. Too many parents say that specifically the MMR shot caused backsliding.
Then comes the parent who says:
“I don’t appreciate people presenting themselves as experts when they don’t know a damn thing about something,”
It’s not Kennedy’s job to know all about autism. His job is to find the researchers who do know about autism to find an answer. That’s what an executive does.
This piece is an obvious hit job.
The “Spectrum” now includes so many things. For example, kids once considered to be retarded or mentally challenged are now on the autism spectrum.
They already know what causes it. They just want to control the bloodthirsty millions who will be coming for them when they admit it.
they used to be called severely mentally retarded and were taken care of in state residences. Some are terribly destructive and abusive. I know of 2 families where the parent who cared for the child and the child were killed in a murder suicide.
These are tough situations.
there was a reason the states all built homes for these kids.
Some worry, too, that Kennedy has spent years suggesting that vaccines might cause autism, despite decades of scientific research showing no such link.
Sure, AssPress ... provide a link to those studies. I bet they are BigPharma paid for *studies*.
Every now and then I get on r/regretfulparents on reddit and read their stories. A lot of those parents are of autistic children.
Their common complaint is not being able to bond with the child.
Other complaints are how destructive or violent the child is.
Many claim the child is destroying their marriage in that they spend so much time for the child’s needs they have no time for each other.
There is a whole spectrum of autism. Some are not potty trained, others lead normal lives. The paper finds a couple of high functioning people with autism to bash Musk. Gets old. Very old.
Yes. This is a MSM spin article. According to them autism is so good you should want your kid to develop it and it’s great that the autism rate is now 1 in 36 when according to available data, the estimated prevalence of autism in the United States during the 1950s was around 1-2 cases per 10,000 children.
Also the newest studies suggest a tie between autism and vaccinations especially when multiple vaccinations are given simultaneously as in catching up a child that is behind on the schedule. The article is very dismissive of Kennedy’s views but this is a very controversial area.
So much money is resting on the current extensive vaccination schedule. Pharmy companies push the studies showing no connection but existing studies are not free from bias. I look forward to the results of the new NIH study.
The increased rates of autism are startling.
Stupid article. Autism is a HUGE spectrum and some families only need minor adjustments to help their child succeed, while other families must deal with children who function at the level of a 3 year old for the rest of their lives.
I applaud any research into WHY autism has exploded (and it’s not just from people getting SS disability for being on the spectrum). Go to any school and you will see that cases of autism used to be able to be counted on one hand… now it’s rampant!
The increased number of disability payments for "autism" is startling.
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