Washington – The Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy spoke a day after the centers for disease control and prevention published a report that he found in 2022, 1 in 31 children in the United States was diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder on his eighth birthday, compared to 1 in 150 children in 2000, when the agency began to collect data.
Autism diagnoses among 4 -year -old children in the new report were estimated at 1 in 34.
Pediatricians and other health experts have attributed the increase to a large extent to greater awareness and better surveillance of the disorder. The definition of autism has also expanded to identify softer cases, which has contributed to more diagnoses.
Despite the evidence that suggests that there is not a single cause of autism, Kennedy promises to discover an underlying reason for September.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Kennedy said, without evidence, that environmental exhibitions, such as food supply, water or nation medicine, probably contribute to the increase in autism rates in children. He called Autism a “preventable disease”, an statement retreated by health experts.
“We know what historical numbers are,” Kennedy told reporters, “and we know what the numbers are today, and it is time for everyone to stop attributing this to this ideology of epidemic denial.”
He also ruled out conclusions from the authors of the CDC report, who attributed the promotion to greater awareness and better surveillance. The report also reaffirmed evidence that suggests that genetics probably plays a role.
“We know it’s an environmental exposure. It has to be,” said Kennedy. “Genes do not cause epidemics. It can provide vulnerability. It needs an environmental toxin.”
Kennedy said the agency will analyze the mold, food additives, pesticides, water, medications, ultrasound and obesity.
He did not provide guidance on which external groups, if any, would support the investigation of the agency or how the studies would be carried out and when.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a non -profit group for autism families, said the CDC report on Tuesday “is the most convincing evidence that changes in factors such as access to services and dismissal” are leading to increases in the prevalence of autism.
The singer said that Kennedy made a series of false statements about autism during Wednesday’s press conference, including that the disorder is caused by something in the environment.
An overwhelming amount of evidence points to a genetic cause, said Singer, added that in approximately 20% of autism cases, a genetic variant can explain the disorder.
In other cases, he said, there may be multiple genetic mutations that interact to cause autism.
At the same time, most researchers recognize that genes do not explain all cases of autism and when people develop autistic traits, it may be due to a combination of genetics and environmental exhibitions. Some investigations have indicated that a mother’s exposure to air pollution may be linked to a higher risk of autism in children.
The comments of the Secretary of Health on Environmental Exhibitions echo their previous comments on the disorder.
Kennedy has repeatedly suggested that vaccines are linked to autism, a connection that has been widely discredited.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center of the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, said he is not persuaded that Kennedy’s studies will discover anything new, saying that the Secretary of Health has already reached a predetermined conclusion.
“What is going to happen is that you will know about him that he has looked behind the FDA curtain, looked behind the curtain in the CDC, and has found things that are shocking for him, shocking about the degree to which Big Pharma has influenced those people,” said Offit.
Erika Edwards contributed.
