RFK Jr. can R-FK Right Off

Autism is a neurotype. It's not a disease, and it's not a tragedy.

He must have lied on his resumé

On April 16, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a speech about autism in his first press conference as Secretary of Health and Human Services for the United States. Sounding a lot like Autism Speaks’ horrendously ableist and hateful 2009 video I Am Autism, he said,

“Autism destroys families. More importantly it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children.”

Okay, imma let you finish, but hold up, RFK. My son and I are both Autistic, and our family is doing quite well, thank you very much. It is not destroyed by autism or anything else. Also, you may have forgotten this, but children are human beings. They’re not coal or gas or water. They’re people. Their job is not to feed your economy, their job is to be kids.

Alright, go on, sir.

“These are children who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who — many of them were fully functional — regressed — because of some environmental exposure — into autism when they were two years old.”

Well, we all know this is a load of B.S. Anyone who has even the most basic knowledge about autism knows that it’s genetic, with an estimated heritability rate of around 90%. Certainly our environment influences how are genes are expressed, and we don’t fully know how or why some people are Autistic and others aren’t, aside from the fact that it’s most commonly passed on through genetics.

RFK Jr. did not, as far as I know, repeat his previous claims that vaccines cause autism. I imagine his team advised against embarrassing himself again, as he did at his confirmation hearing earlier this year, but he may as well given the amount of disinformation he spouted. Such as:

“These are kids who 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.”

Honestly, I’m kind of impressed by how much ignorance RFK Jr. was able to pack into less than one minute of his first press conference.