" There ’s a elbow room to talk about autism without stripping autistic multitude of their mankind . Calling shaver burdens who ’ll never ' contribute ' is n’t insurance policy , it ’s ableist . "
RFK Jr.’s apparent obsession with people with autism is never-ending. The Health and Human Services Secretary has gone viral for yet another unfounded (and offensive) comment about"environmental toxins"causing autism in children, and how he says those children will never be able to do things like “pay taxes” or “hold a job.”
In a recentclip, RFK Jr. delivered remarks during a news conference at the Department of Health and Human Services, where he discussed therecent rise of autism ratesand how he believes it’s impacting America’s youth. Here’s the video:
RFK JR : And these are tiddler who will never pay taxes , they ’ll never hold a line of work , they ’ll never represent baseball , they ’ll never write a poem . They ’ll never go out on a particular date . Many of them will never habituate a toilet unassistedpic.twitter.com/8T3hcYYn9O
“Autism destroys families, but more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this.”
“These are kids, many of them were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they’re 2 years old.”
“And 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. And we have to recognize, we are doing this to our children.”
For context, theUS Center for Disease Control and Preventionreportedthat the increased rate of autism diagnoses (more than3% of children) can be attributed to"increased access to identification among previously underserved groups.“This means more children are being tested for autism, which inevitably increases the number of children who are receiving the diagnosis.
In 2023 , the federal autism research coordination officesaid , " While the phone number of studies investigating the epidemiology of autism is increase , most potential environmental factors have not been investigate sufficiently to pull firm finish . "
Another person called out RFK Jr. saying kids with autism will “never pay taxes.”
“My son is autistic. He paid taxes last year. He has a job. He is going to college. He’s is an Eagle Scout,” another person wrote in response.
