'Somebody has to find out': Trump says RFK Jr. will look at why autism is on the rise

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump suggested Sunday he would task Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, with looking into the health effects of vaccines and why autism diagnoses are on the rise in America.

“I think somebody has to find out,” Trump said during an interview on "Meet the Press."

Kennedy, who comes from one of America’s most prominent political families, is known for his anti-vaccine beliefs and has repeatedly spread false or misleading claims regarding vaccines, fluoride and other topics. He gained national prominence in part because of his opposition to the childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Kennedy has pushed debunked claims that the vaccine was linked to autism, among other conspiracy theories.

Trump, who for years was a vaccine skeptic himself, said during the interview that he is not opposed to vaccines.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-rfk-jr-may-182841717.html

Has it increased or are we better at diagnosing it?

[Klarkashton]

1. How would that stupid ass Kennedy find anything out?

[Iris]

3. Right?

[Iris]

2. My god he's dumb. I guess he doesn't realize people have been researching this for decades

[Johonny]

14. But they are professionals

Clearly only drug addicts with brain worm damage can solve the tough non-problems.

Odds RFK Jr. makes America medicine worse, 100 %. You would be insane not to see it coming. Add that to the chance ACA might be repealed. Holy crap, Americans will be immigrating to Mexico just to get basic treatment and drugs (more than they already do.)

[bucolic_frolic]

4. junk food

fried foods with nickel plated electrodes

that's my suspect

[Deuxcents]

5. TSF hires on the best..I didn't realize RFK jr was a medical scientist 😳

[allegorical oracle]

11. It's always a good move to have lawyers practice medicine. nt

[Shermann]

6. Good luck with that given there isn't an objective, definitive test for it. Sounds hard. nt

[Meowmee]

7. I am sure the cause is not from vaccines

It’s likely they will never find a “cause” or one single cause as is true for many diseases. I haven’t read enough about it to make a comment on it. But I remember years ago a friend of a friend had a baby on her own after breaking up with her fiancé.

By the time he was three he was diagnosed as being severely autistic. She blamed it on the fact that she had had a drug addiction. I don’t know if she was taking drugs at the time that she was pregnant….I don’t think so. I did not keep in touch with them so I don’t know what happened in the end if he improved, etc.

I do believe many of these conditions are being over diagnosed now especially Aspergers and autism. It seems like numerous people think they have Aspergers, and autism in the past 20 years or so. Whereas before it used to be only the most severely affected children who were diagnosed as autistic.

[dflprincess]

8. I'm betting a lot of it is because they're better at diagnosing it

and recognize that it's a very broad spectrum.

My friend & I were discussing her brother (nearly 80 now) who we'd both bet is high on the spectrum. Very bright, but socially awkward. Always preferred to spend his time with other engineers who spoke the same language. But, when we were young, he was just the "odd smart kid" (he's also 8 years older than us so we didn't hang with him in our youth so we don't know everything about his teen & college years).

One of my grandnephews, who has been diagnosed, reminds me of him.

With all the chemical pollutions (thinking something like PFAS, not vaccines) I suppose it could be on the rise as well.

[ananda]

9. If he blames it on vaccines, I think I'll scream.

It just looks like any excuse to me.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. No evidence to offer, but . . . .

a long time ago, it was suggested that Barron changed from a typical, rambunctious little boy into a one who was abnormally quiet, slow, detached, distracted, etc. after the age of three. You can compare the little footage of him in YouTubes. And around that time, that's when Trump started to make statements about vaccines and autism. I don't know if that was his own theory or if a doctor suggested it. Or RFK, Jr.

[Solly Mack]

12. That's an ill wind

[RockRaven]

13. Willful ignorance is annoying when not being outright dangerous because it

allows the ignoramus to act as if others do not know things which are very well known and demonstrated.

[Diamond_Dog]

15. ....

[AntiFascist]

16. This review of scientific studies indicates a relationship between mercury and autism...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27473827/

but it is environmental mercury that is the problem, not the kind that was once used in vaccines.
Automotive exhaust, pesticides and other sources are thought to contain the top ten compounds that may contribute to causing ASD.

I recall another study conducted by the University of Texas showing a relationship between the proximity to coal burning plants and incidents of autism, suggesting that coal burning plants being the primary source of mercury pollution could be a factor.

Perhaps the Trump Administration should crack down on coal burning plants and automotive exhaust, but I won't hold my breath. It seems clear that they want to distract us from the real problems.

[Hekate]

17. Regarding autism increase: back in the '90s I read 2 pollution articles back to back...

The first one was about leakage of rocket fuel from the JPL Lab into the underground aquifers, and how difficult attempts to track its travels were. Rocket fuel is Bad News, right? But it’s not everywhere in the country, either.

The second one really felt personal because it had to do with a study of amniotic fluid, which a pregnant woman’s body creates to float her baby in. When I was young and pregnant in the 1970s I was soooo conscientious about everything I ate and drank, avoided bug spray, and everything I could think of. I was only going to have 2 kids and I wasn’t taking any chances.

Some lab scientists (in the ‘90s as I said) undertook to study the number and kind of chemicals in human amniotic fluid. They did the usual scientific method in choosing a good cross section of the population and all that. Healthy women, and I am sure the great majority took the same precautions I once did.

The results were really kind of ghastly, I thought. They found so many kinds of chemicals that they stopped counting at over 200. This was every single sample. A whole generation of fetuses marinating in mass-produced chemicals.

It’s that one that haunts me. Isn’t that about the same time that autism rose in numbers and prominence? My ex-husband was a special ed teacher, and when he started teaching the great majority of his students were simply low IQ, sweet natured like Downs’ kids. That population was ultimately almost totally replaced by kids diagnosed as autistic-unable-to-be-mainstreamed, and his life became very hard indeed. Why? How?

I remember the MMR vaccine theory, which always struck me as highly unlikely, and it was later thoroughly debunked and the British doctor “struck from the rolls” as they put it when he lost his license. I remember the “better diagnosis these days” theory, and that seemed reasonable for awhile.

But still, the thought haunts me of our incredibly vulnerable fetuses and babies-to-be marinating in chemicals — forever chemicals, and whatever else our modern lives are soaked in — while their mothers are conscientiously watching everything they eat and drink and use around the house. And I truly wonder if this isn’t the major reason for the rise in autism numbers.