Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posts endorsement of measles MMR vaccine on X
Health and Human Services secretary, and vaccine skeptic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supports measles vaccine after visiting West Texas.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday during a meeting of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet that he expects his agency will soon know the cause of the “autism epidemic.”
“By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic,” Kennedy said. “And we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
The CDC says that some people with Autism Spectrum Disorder have “a known difference, such as a genetic condition. Other causes are not yet known.”
“Scientists believe there are multiple causes of ASD that act together to change the most common ways people develop,” the agency says.
Kennedy made the remarks in passing as part of an update on his work since joining Trump’s Cabinet in February.
“We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy said of the effort to find the cause of autism.
After Kennedy’s remarks, Trump said that autism could be caused by “something artificial” and “maybe it’s a shot.”
“There will be no bigger news conference than that…,” Trump said. “If you can come up with that answer where you stop taking something, you stop eating something, or maybe it’s a shot. But something’s causing it.”
Kennedy is known for anti-vaccine views and has spread debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.
Trump in February ordered the creation of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission made up of Kennedy and other secretaries to look at everything from the rates of autism and asthma in children to how much medicine is being prescribed to them for ADHD or other conditions.
Autism diagnoses in the United States have increased significantly since 2000, intensifying public concern. Scientists have been researching for decades what genetic or environmental factors might contribute to autism, but the causes of most cases remain unclear.
They say that the major drivers of the increase in U.S. autism rates are an expanded definition that includes more types of behaviors and more widespread awareness and diagnosis.’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says many studies have looked at whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism and “to date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with” autism.