RFK JR. He calls autism “possible to avoid”, drawing anger from researchers

In the remarks related to scientific inaccuracies Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Health and Social Welfare Department, said on Wednesday that autism can be prevented, while denying researchers in his own agency on a basic driver standing in the amount of state rates in juvenile children.

Mr. Kennedy commented on a press conference, responding to the modern Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showing that autism indicators increased to one in 31 among 8-year-olds, continuing a long trend.

By blaming environmental risk factors for growth, he accused the media and public opinion of succumbing to the “myth of denying the epidemic” when it comes to autism. He also called research on genetic factors, which, according to scientists, play an significant role in whether the child develops autism of “blind alley”.

“Genes don’t cause an epidemic,” he said. “You need environmental toxin.”

Autism indicators among children have increased almost five times since 2000, when CDC for the first time began to collect data on the occurrence of state in children. The modern CDC report assigned a part of the growth of autism spreading to a larger number of screening for this state. Researchers pointed to several other factors, including more awareness of what autism looks like, greater access to services, more parents with children in later life and wider definitions of disorder.

Mr. Kennedy promised that under his leadership the Health Department would focus on looking at some substances, such as mold and food additives, and parental obesity to reverse autism indicators in children.

“These are children who, many of them, were fully functional and regressed because of some exposure to the environment to autism when they are 2 years aged,” he said.

Scientists have not ruled out the possibility that both genes and environmental factors may affect whether the child is developing autism. Despite this, there is no evidence suggesting that autism can be avoided, and scientists immediately criticized this suggestion.

Dr. Eric Fombonne, who is a long -time researcher of autism and a retired professor at Oregon Health & Science University, called Mr. Kennedy’s “witty” theorem of Mr. Kennedy.

“Autism is not an infectious disease. So there is no preventive measures that we can take,” said Dr. Joshua Anbar, assistant to the didactic professor at the Arizona State University, who helped collect data for the CDC report.

Although Mr. Kennedy did not mention the vaccines in his comments on Wednesday, he previously tried to connect his childhood vaccinations with the growing autism indicator.

Dozens of research did not determine the relationship between autism and vaccines. Nevertheless, the Health Department has recently employed discredited skeptics of the vaccine to examine the theory.

Asked by a reporter if the differences in the way of diagnosing autism can explain the boost in cases, Mr. Kennedy argued that such changes can take into account no more than a fraction of growth.

Scientists said that there is no one reason why the autism rate increased, but it The increased screening was probably a enormous factor.

“The more you are looking for, the more you will find,” said Dr. Maureen Durkin, a professor of the population of health and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has long studied autism. Dr. Durkin is one of the authors of the CDC report.

Mr. Kennedy repeatedly rejected the idea that the shows led to growth as “canard” and punished “denying the epidemic” for focusing on genetics instead of environmental factors.

He argued that genes could not do more than predisposing someone to be more susceptible to environmental factors, comparing it to the fact that not all smokers die of lung cancer.

Experts found that justified research on research on potential environmental factors should be carried out, but rejected at the apparent approach of Mr. Kennedy, which seemed to completely discount the advantages of further study of the genetic foundations of this state.

Scientists have been knowing that genetics contribute to the development of neurodevelopmental disorder since the 1970s. Twin studies Since then, it has shown that identical twins more often than brotherly twins who do not have the same genetic makeup to develop a disorder.

Since then, hundreds of genetic irregularities related to autism have been identified.

“We know that there is a clear genetic contribution. This is not questioned,” said Catherine Lord, a psychologist and autism researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles. “The question is: can it interact with the environment? Is it possible that someone who has a genetic risk for autism is then exposed to something that results in autism?”

Mr. Kennedy also repeated research order plans to identify environmental toxins to explain the growing indicator of this state. He said that he would have “some answers” until September and then invite the research community to participate. “We give them a task with some results,” he said.

Mr. Kennedy said that the research will focus in particular on toxins introduced to the environment around 1989, which, specifying that with the year of “epidemics” of autism, the claim questioned by experts began. The first test of autism was published in 1943, and the state was in addition To the diagnostic and statistical textbook of mental disorders, the main classification system used by psychiatrists, in 1980.

Dr. David Mandell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, said that scientists would be better to look for genetic elements of autism and financial efforts to develop modern services supporting people in a state.

“We are prepared to look in the wrong place, put our money in the wrong place,” said Dr. Mandell.