Summary

RFK Jr. is using private medical records to create a registry of people with autism in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health is helping to collect private medical records from government and commercial databases, including “prescription records from pharmacies, lab testing, and genomics records from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, private insurance claims, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers.”

Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, has made the study of autism one of HHS’s primary goals. He has called autism “preventable” and claimed “he can find a cure for the condition by September.”

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
    4·
    9 hours ago

    Yes, well, there are good statistics and studies on autism and it’s mostly genetic. A bug of some of our far ancestors being related enough to have kids, but not enough to avoid weird bugs. Like - some of the neanderthals were not eaten. And parts of their genes were kinda compatible to those of bog standard homo sapiens sapiens, but not entirely. Which mostly doesn’t show in humans, and when it does, it’s autism. Or green eyes. Or something like that. Point being - really nothing to do with environment.

    BTW, RFK Jr really with his manner of speech seems like a high-functioning autistic person, give or take. I wonder if he knows that you don’t have to hide in a room all day and smell and have problems talking at all to be that. I also wonder if he knows that his survival\camping interests too match that a lot.