April 24, 2025 • 12 mins
Last week, the U.S. Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, announced an investigation into what he called the “autism epidemic,” and called the condition a “preventable disease”. Kennedy’s interest in the causes of autism is long-standing, but he’s never had a platform as large as leading the U.S. health department before. In today’s podcast, we’ll explain Kennedy’s history with autism, the new investigation, and what it might mean for Autistic people in the U.S.
Hosts: Lucy Tassell and Zara Seidler
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the
Daily OS. It's Friday, the twenty fifth of April. I'm
Lucy Tassel.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Last week, the US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior,
announced an investigation into what he called the autism epidemic
and called the condition a preventable disease. Kennedy's interest in
the causes of autism is long standing, but he's never
had a platform as large as leading the US Health
Department before. In today's podcast, we'll explain Kennedy's history with autism,
(00:43):
the new investigation, and what it might mean for autistic Americans.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Lucy, before we dive into this story, because there's a
lot there and I want to unpack it all. But
I do think that a good starting point is by
actually just explaining autism, because that is at the center
of this story. What is autism and how does it manifest?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So you've probably heard the phrase on the spectrum, possibly
in the context of the show Love on the Spectrum.
That's referring to the autism spectrum. So autism is a
neurological condition. It can manifest in a number of different
ways and to different degrees, which is why we talk
about it as being a spectrum. It's diagnosed through developmental
(01:29):
assessments and behavioral observations, and it's often characterized by differences
in communication styles and issues with sensory processing. In terms
of autism in Australia, where we are, according to the
Bureau of Statistics, autistic Australians are nearly six times more
likely to be unemployed than Australians without a disability, and
(01:51):
the majority of young autistic Australians experience difficulty in school settings, and.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So that paints a picture as to how autism manifests.
But do we understand what causes autism?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, we know as much about the causes of autism
as we do about the causes of any other kind
of neurological condition, which is to say, not much. But
we think it could be a range of things. It
could be genetic, it could be something to do with
brain development. I think what it's important to say is
that we don't know as clearly as we do for example,
(02:27):
that if you smoke cigarettes your risk of cancer increases.
We don't have that same cause and effect for neurological conditions,
including autism. However, in the late nineteen nineties, there was
a man named Andrew Wakefield who published a medical study
which he said suggested that a routine childhood vaccine, specifically
(02:49):
the MMR vaccine, which is for measles, mumps, and rubella,
causes autism. His study involved twelve children, eight of whom
had been diagnosed with all autism within a month of
receiving this routine vaccine.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I do think it's important to say here that a
sample size of twelve is by no means comprehensive and
is not, you know, even just by journalistic standard, something
that we would necessarily report on me even today. What's
happened since that research was handed down.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yes, this sample size was one of the many issues
with the study. I should note also, according to the
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center, the MMR vaccine
is administered around the time that children are most commonly
diagnosed with autism, meaning it was a case of two
things happening around the same time being wrongly considered as linked.
(03:44):
A useful example might be I get caught in the
rain one day and a couple of weeks later, I
get diagnosed with depression. It doesn't mean that because I
got caught in the rain and I got wet and
I didn't like it, that I became depressed, even though
I was sad on that day. It just means that
these two happened within a couple of weeks of each other,
and that is what the scientific community now suggests was
(04:05):
the case with Wakefield's study. So Andrew Wakefield actually later
lost his medical license as a result of this study
and some of the research processes that he went through
to produce the study. It was found that he had
breached professional ethics and forced children to undergo unnecessary medical procedures.
The paper itself has been comprehensively debunked by many many scientists.
(04:31):
But there's a saying coined by American civil rights activist
Medga Evers, you can kill a man, but you can't
kill an idea. Wakefield's official medical career is dead, but
the idea that he put into the world is very
much alive. Someone else who's used that phrase is Robert F.
Kennedy's uncle John F. Kennedy, who was President of the
(04:51):
United States in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yes, and we have done a whole podcast about JFK.
Anyone that listened to that knows that I'm ABS, but
we're going to put that aside for this episode because
we're not talking about JFK. We are talking about RFK Junior.
So Robert F. Kennedy talk to me about his ascension
to becoming the health secretary, because it's quite an unorthodox
(05:16):
path here, and I want to focus on his career
before we get to what he's now claiming.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
As I mentioned, Kennedy's uncle was US President. JFK was
assassinated in November nineteen sixty three. The Kennedy family as
a whole has been a huge part of US political life,
specifically with the Democratic Party for many decades. Kennedy's own father,
Robert F. Kennedy Senior, was Attorney General to his brother
(05:44):
and mounted his own presidential campaign before he was also
assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. As for RFK Junior, he
worked as an environmental lawyer for many years. He sued
several major companies for pollution in the early two thousands.
In two thousand and three, specifically, he has said he
(06:04):
was approached by a woman named Sarah Bridges, who said
her young son had become very ill and had been
diagnosed with autism after receiving a routine vaccination. Kennedy then
became convinced that mercury, which is a chemical element used
in vaccines for preservation, was endangering children. Now, I should
(06:25):
note mercury was once used in vaccines, or rather a
preservative derived from mercury. It was in the process of
being phased out when Kennedy kind of took up this crusade.
He published an article about the supposed connection in Rolling
Stone magazine, which was later several years later withdrawn because
(06:47):
it is not accurate. Following that, Kennedy chaired a nonprofit
organization called Children's Health Defense, which is an anti vaccine organization,
and he repeatedly said he believes a range of conditions
from food allergies to autism are tied to these routine,
(07:08):
standard childhood vaccinations. So that kind of explains his interest
in the world of health.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And so what happened between this interest specifically I cornered
the interest in say, the anti vax movement, to then
him becoming health secretary. What happened in between.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
In early twenty twenty three, So just jumping ahead a
little bit, he launched a campaign for the US presidency.
He was running as a Democrat. Later that year, he
dropped out of the party and went independent. He then
suspended his campaign in August twenty twenty four, and he
endorsed Donald Trump, who, as we know, went on to
(07:48):
win election and become President of the United States for
the second time. And then after Trump's election, he appointed
Kennedy as the head of the Health Department, which means
he the Health Secretary.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, and there was an understanding that when RFK dropped
out that there was some agreement between him and Trump,
and so when he was announced as Health Secretary, I
don't know that there was a lot of surprise. I
think people really expected it. Yeah, But he's now been
in the role for a couple of months, and last
week he announced this new major investigation. What is it?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
According to Kennedy, this investigation is going to be led
by one of the major US government health bodies, which
is the National Institutes of Health. It's going to be
focused on the quote root causes of autism, including, according
to Kennedy, environmental toxins. The National Institutes has also been
tasked with examining food additives, mold, pesticide, medicines, and ultrasounds
(08:48):
done during pregnancy. Kennedy said, they've been asked to quote,
come back with an answer for the American people very
quickly as to what he's saying is the cause of autism. Now,
what's interesting to me is this investigation was announced on
the heels of another US government research project, this one
conducted by another government body, the Centers for Disease Control
(09:11):
and Prevention aka the CDC.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Lots of people would be familiar from COVID with the CDC.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, the CDC's study found one in thirty one eight
year olds in the US are autistic, which is up
from one in thirty six in twenty twenty. The results
came from data collected from sixteen different locations across the country.
I want to be clear, the report rejected the idea
that quote living in certain communities put children at greater
(09:40):
risk for developing autism, so effectively saying there are not
environmental factors. Instead, the CDC said the differences in diagnosis
rates across these sixteen different communities quote might be due
to differences in the availability of services for early detection
and evaluation. So a fairly simple ar Kennedy then announced
(10:02):
this new investigation right after having received this previous investigation,
which suggested that environmental factors like living in certain communities
don't impact autism.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So his investigation is into whether that is the case
or not. What's been the reaction to this announcement.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
The announcement sparked quite a bit of backlash from health experts,
from disability advocates, and from autism support organizations. In a
statement responding to the investigation, the US Autism Society rejected
Kennedy's claims, labeling his language as quote both inaccurate and stigmatizing.
They called it harmful rhetoric and a harmful policy direction.
(10:47):
That quote reflects a troubling lack of understanding, empathy and respect.
Part of that backlash centered around not just the investigation,
but also around something that he said during.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
His Autism destroys families. And these are kids who will
never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, i'll play baseball,
they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on
a date. Many of them will than ever use a toilet. Unassessed.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Now, as I said, autism is a spectrum, so that
is not something that can be applied to every autistic person,
and even though there are some people for whom that
does apply, advocates say these characteristics don't make them of
any less value as a person, nor does it quote
destroy their family necessarily. Later in the week, Kennedy announced
(11:42):
he wants a registry of all autistic Americans, which has
raised concerns around people's privacy as well about what has
historically happened when governments make a list of people based
on a single characteristic. So it will be very interesting
to see what the outcome of this investigation and what
other moves Kennedy makes during his time as Health Secretary
(12:04):
over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Lucy, thank you so much for explaining that story, and
it's definitely one that we will be keeping a really
close eye on to see what happens with this investigation
and what the Trump administration plans to do with that.
And if you have any questions about this story, please
feel free to leave some comments in our Spotify and
we'll be sure to.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Get back to you.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunje lung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz
acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the
Daily OS. It's Friday, the twenty fifth of April. I'm
Lucy Tassel.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Last week, the US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior,
announced an investigation into what he called the autism epidemic
and called the condition a preventable disease. Kennedy's interest in
the causes of autism is long standing, but he's never
had a platform as large as leading the US Health
Department before. In today's podcast, we'll explain Kennedy's history with autism,
(00:43):
the new investigation, and what it might mean for autistic Americans.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Lucy, before we dive into this story, because there's a
lot there and I want to unpack it all. But
I do think that a good starting point is by
actually just explaining autism, because that is at the center
of this story. What is autism and how does it manifest?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So you've probably heard the phrase on the spectrum, possibly
in the context of the show Love on the Spectrum.
That's referring to the autism spectrum. So autism is a
neurological condition. It can manifest in a number of different
ways and to different degrees, which is why we talk
about it as being a spectrum. It's diagnosed through developmental
(01:29):
assessments and behavioral observations, and it's often characterized by differences
in communication styles and issues with sensory processing. In terms
of autism in Australia, where we are, according to the
Bureau of Statistics, autistic Australians are nearly six times more
likely to be unemployed than Australians without a disability, and
(01:51):
the majority of young autistic Australians experience difficulty in school settings, and.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So that paints a picture as to how autism manifests.
But do we understand what causes autism?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, we know as much about the causes of autism
as we do about the causes of any other kind
of neurological condition, which is to say, not much. But
we think it could be a range of things. It
could be genetic, it could be something to do with
brain development. I think what it's important to say is
that we don't know as clearly as we do for example,
(02:27):
that if you smoke cigarettes your risk of cancer increases.
We don't have that same cause and effect for neurological conditions,
including autism. However, in the late nineteen nineties, there was
a man named Andrew Wakefield who published a medical study
which he said suggested that a routine childhood vaccine, specifically
(02:49):
the MMR vaccine, which is for measles, mumps, and rubella,
causes autism. His study involved twelve children, eight of whom
had been diagnosed with all autism within a month of
receiving this routine vaccine.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I do think it's important to say here that a
sample size of twelve is by no means comprehensive and
is not, you know, even just by journalistic standard, something
that we would necessarily report on me even today. What's
happened since that research was handed down.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yes, this sample size was one of the many issues
with the study. I should note also, according to the
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center, the MMR vaccine
is administered around the time that children are most commonly
diagnosed with autism, meaning it was a case of two
things happening around the same time being wrongly considered as linked.
(03:44):
A useful example might be I get caught in the
rain one day and a couple of weeks later, I
get diagnosed with depression. It doesn't mean that because I
got caught in the rain and I got wet and
I didn't like it, that I became depressed, even though
I was sad on that day. It just means that
these two happened within a couple of weeks of each other,
and that is what the scientific community now suggests was
(04:05):
the case with Wakefield's study. So Andrew Wakefield actually later
lost his medical license as a result of this study
and some of the research processes that he went through
to produce the study. It was found that he had
breached professional ethics and forced children to undergo unnecessary medical procedures.
The paper itself has been comprehensively debunked by many many scientists.
(04:31):
But there's a saying coined by American civil rights activist
Medga Evers, you can kill a man, but you can't
kill an idea. Wakefield's official medical career is dead, but
the idea that he put into the world is very
much alive. Someone else who's used that phrase is Robert F.
Kennedy's uncle John F. Kennedy, who was President of the
(04:51):
United States in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yes, and we have done a whole podcast about JFK.
Anyone that listened to that knows that I'm ABS, but
we're going to put that aside for this episode because
we're not talking about JFK. We are talking about RFK Junior.
So Robert F. Kennedy talk to me about his ascension
to becoming the health secretary, because it's quite an unorthodox
(05:16):
path here, and I want to focus on his career
before we get to what he's now claiming.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
As I mentioned, Kennedy's uncle was US President. JFK was
assassinated in November nineteen sixty three. The Kennedy family as
a whole has been a huge part of US political life,
specifically with the Democratic Party for many decades. Kennedy's own father,
Robert F. Kennedy Senior, was Attorney General to his brother
(05:44):
and mounted his own presidential campaign before he was also
assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. As for RFK Junior, he
worked as an environmental lawyer for many years. He sued
several major companies for pollution in the early two thousands.
In two thousand and three, specifically, he has said he
(06:04):
was approached by a woman named Sarah Bridges, who said
her young son had become very ill and had been
diagnosed with autism after receiving a routine vaccination. Kennedy then
became convinced that mercury, which is a chemical element used
in vaccines for preservation, was endangering children. Now, I should
(06:25):
note mercury was once used in vaccines, or rather a
preservative derived from mercury. It was in the process of
being phased out when Kennedy kind of took up this crusade.
He published an article about the supposed connection in Rolling
Stone magazine, which was later several years later withdrawn because
(06:47):
it is not accurate. Following that, Kennedy chaired a nonprofit
organization called Children's Health Defense, which is an anti vaccine organization,
and he repeatedly said he believes a range of conditions
from food allergies to autism are tied to these routine,
(07:08):
standard childhood vaccinations. So that kind of explains his interest
in the world of health.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And so what happened between this interest specifically I cornered
the interest in say, the anti vax movement, to then
him becoming health secretary. What happened in between.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
In early twenty twenty three, So just jumping ahead a
little bit, he launched a campaign for the US presidency.
He was running as a Democrat. Later that year, he
dropped out of the party and went independent. He then
suspended his campaign in August twenty twenty four, and he
endorsed Donald Trump, who, as we know, went on to
(07:48):
win election and become President of the United States for
the second time. And then after Trump's election, he appointed
Kennedy as the head of the Health Department, which means
he the Health Secretary.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, and there was an understanding that when RFK dropped
out that there was some agreement between him and Trump,
and so when he was announced as Health Secretary, I
don't know that there was a lot of surprise. I
think people really expected it. Yeah, But he's now been
in the role for a couple of months, and last
week he announced this new major investigation. What is it?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
According to Kennedy, this investigation is going to be led
by one of the major US government health bodies, which
is the National Institutes of Health. It's going to be
focused on the quote root causes of autism, including, according
to Kennedy, environmental toxins. The National Institutes has also been
tasked with examining food additives, mold, pesticide, medicines, and ultrasounds
(08:48):
done during pregnancy. Kennedy said, they've been asked to quote,
come back with an answer for the American people very
quickly as to what he's saying is the cause of autism. Now,
what's interesting to me is this investigation was announced on
the heels of another US government research project, this one
conducted by another government body, the Centers for Disease Control
(09:11):
and Prevention aka the CDC.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Lots of people would be familiar from COVID with the CDC.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, the CDC's study found one in thirty one eight
year olds in the US are autistic, which is up
from one in thirty six in twenty twenty. The results
came from data collected from sixteen different locations across the country.
I want to be clear, the report rejected the idea
that quote living in certain communities put children at greater
(09:40):
risk for developing autism, so effectively saying there are not
environmental factors. Instead, the CDC said the differences in diagnosis
rates across these sixteen different communities quote might be due
to differences in the availability of services for early detection
and evaluation. So a fairly simple ar Kennedy then announced
(10:02):
this new investigation right after having received this previous investigation,
which suggested that environmental factors like living in certain communities
don't impact autism.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So his investigation is into whether that is the case
or not. What's been the reaction to this announcement.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
The announcement sparked quite a bit of backlash from health experts,
from disability advocates, and from autism support organizations. In a
statement responding to the investigation, the US Autism Society rejected
Kennedy's claims, labeling his language as quote both inaccurate and stigmatizing.
They called it harmful rhetoric and a harmful policy direction.
(10:47):
That quote reflects a troubling lack of understanding, empathy and respect.
Part of that backlash centered around not just the investigation,
but also around something that he said during.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
His Autism destroys families. And these are kids who will
never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, i'll play baseball,
they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on
a date. Many of them will than ever use a toilet. Unassessed.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Now, as I said, autism is a spectrum, so that
is not something that can be applied to every autistic person,
and even though there are some people for whom that
does apply, advocates say these characteristics don't make them of
any less value as a person, nor does it quote
destroy their family necessarily. Later in the week, Kennedy announced
(11:42):
he wants a registry of all autistic Americans, which has
raised concerns around people's privacy as well about what has
historically happened when governments make a list of people based
on a single characteristic. So it will be very interesting
to see what the outcome of this investigation and what
other moves Kennedy makes during his time as Health Secretary
(12:04):
over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Lucy, thank you so much for explaining that story, and
it's definitely one that we will be keeping a really
close eye on to see what happens with this investigation
and what the Trump administration plans to do with that.
And if you have any questions about this story, please
feel free to leave some comments in our Spotify and
we'll be sure to.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Get back to you.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunje lung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz
acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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