New research contradicts RFK Jr.’s claim that severe autism cases are rising
Cases with mild or significant impairment stayed relatively consistent from 2000 to 2016, the analysis found.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the government’s new autism findings this month, he painted a grim and highly controversial picture: Not only was autism becoming more prevalent, he said, but “most cases now are severe.”
The notion that severe symptoms are becoming more common isn’t substantiated by scientific evidence. Rather, new research being announced this week at the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Seattle suggests that the share of autism cases with moderate or significant symptoms remained relatively consistent from 2000 to 2016.
In the past few weeks, Kennedy has repeatedly referred to autism as an “epidemic” that is leading to more cases of severe intellectual disability.
“This is an epidemic like nothing we’ve ever seen before. It dwarfs the Covid epidemic,” he told Fox News this month. “This is disabling children for their entire lives.”
The characterization has sparked outcry among some parents, advocates and medical experts, who say Kennedy is using a minority of cases to represent autism as a whole.
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