Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ought to, in concept, have his arms full coping with a nationwide measles outbreak, or the chook flu that despatched egg costs hovering.
Nevertheless, the uncooked milk-loving anti-vaxxer now charged with overseeing our nation’s well-being has determined his consideration is finest spent gutting scientific analysis—and spewing extra hateful rhetoric towards the autistic group.
His newest hard-hitting concept: Autism is worse than the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the loss of life of droves of senior residents is much less of a tragedy than younger folks having various levels of a neurodevelopmental dysfunction.
“It dwarfs the COVID epidemic and the impacts on our country because COVID killed old people. Autism affects children and affects them at the beginning of their lives, the beginning of their productivity,” he mentioned throughout an interview on “The Cats Roundtable” podcast that aired Sunday.
“And it’s absolutely debilitating for them, their families, their communities, and for our county,” Kennedy continued, “just the pure economic cost of autism.”
Throughout the top of COVID-19 in 2020, the pandemic killed a whole lot of hundreds of individuals within the U.S. alone. At one level in New York Metropolis, staff had been storing lifeless our bodies in refrigerated tractor trailers as a result of the morgues couldn’t sustain with the tempo of deaths
However when you ask Kennedy, a infamous conspiracy theorist who has claimed that immunizations, just like the COVID-19 vaccine, trigger autism, this neurodevelopmental situation trumps these deaths.
Kennedy went on to explain a portion of the autistic group as a monetary burden to the U.S., saying that the “economic cost” might hit $1 trillion by 2035.
“Those families, those children are nonverbal, they’re non-toilet-trained,” he continued.
“They’ve all of the stereotypical options of autism, head-banging, toe-walking, stimming, agonizing intestine ache and head-banging. These youngsters are youngsters that won’t maintain jobs.
He did soften his tone in comparison with the April 16 screed that drew livid backlash.
“And many kids with autism—many of the higher-functioning autism actually can, have tremendous potential to live independently, to get jobs, take care of themselves,” Kennedy stuttered.
The top of our well being division has launched a witch hunt to search out the “causes” of autism in issues like ultrasounds, medicines, pesticides, meals chemical compounds, and extra. This follows a Facilities for Illness Management report which mentioned one in 31 youngsters beneath 8 years previous are being identified with the dysfunction.
Nevertheless, Kennedy is at odds with the division he oversees on the subject of this subject, given the CDC’s personal findings stating that the variety of instances is on the rise due to the medical group’s enhancing potential to acknowledge and correctly diagnose folks with autism.
After all, that gained’t cease the person who dumped a lifeless bear in Central Park for funsies from generalizing and bashing autistic folks.
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As a result of to Kennedy, the true tragedy is that autistic folks will “never pay taxes.”
“They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” he mentioned Wednesday throughout a press convention.
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the Nationwide Faculty of Tropical Drugs on the Baylor Faculty of Drugs and the daddy of a daughter with autism, fully refuted Kennedy’s ableist claims.
“My adult daughter Rachel, works everyday, pays taxes, has friends, loves going to the movies, and listens to lousy (IMO) music,” Hotez wrote in a social media submit. “She has a meaningful and thoughtful life.”
In an announcement offered to CNN, Zoe Gross, director of advocacy on the Autistic Self Advocacy Community, slammed Kennedy’s clueless pronouncements.
“He set up this litmus test of what it is to be a person and have a valuable life,” mentioned Gross, who’s autistic. “It’s not acceptable to talk that way anymore because of the work that we’ve done.”
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