The federal government may have partial answers on the purported causes of autism by this fall, but not the full picture, as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised in April.
The commission’s next report, spelling out strategies to combat chronic diseases across health, agricultural and environmental agencies, will be released this August, Kennedy said.
But his self-declared deadline to distill the drivers of autism by September — as Kennedy announced in an April Cabinet meeting — is slipping.
“We’ll have some of the information [by September]. To get the most solid information, it will probably take us another six months,” Kennedy said Thursday. By the end of those additional six months, or roughly March, “I expect we will know the answers of the etiology of autism,” he said.
Autism researchers and scientists have questioned the likelihood of delivering definitive conclusions on the drivers of autism in such a short timeframe, considering the years of research that is often undertaken in this area.
That research has already identified likely factors leading to autism, including genetics and prenatal exposures.
Yet Kennedy said Thursday that HHS “will have some studies completed by September,” primarily replications of previous research. “We’re also deploying new teams of scientists, 15 groups of scientists. We’re going to send those grants out to bid within three weeks,” he said.
National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has suggested that results could take longer. “Science happens at its own pace,” he told reporters in April, adding that he would like to see “preliminary results” within a year.
The ability to replicate research, or repeat studies and arrive at the same results, has been a core priority of Bhattacharya and was highlighted in the MAHA report. Kennedy seemed to suggest Thursday that scientists could draw different conclusions from that research than those working on previous studies.
Milwaukee’s lead program
Kennedy also addressed his terse exchanges in Senate hearings this month with Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who has questioned his response to an ongoing lead crisis in Milwaukee public schools.
Kennedy told senators during an appropriations hearing this week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a team on the ground in Milwaukee to help. The city said that is not true.
“You could hear my other exchanges with Tammy Baldwin,” he said. “And anyway, I’m not necessarily believing what Senator Baldwin says.”
Pushback to MAHA report
Kennedy also addressed the pushback from major agricultural groups Thursday over the MAHA report’s inclusion of studies suggesting toxic exposure from commonly used herbicides.
Organizations including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Corn Growers Association released statements saying the insinuations about pesticide risks could erode Americans’ confidence in the national food supply.
Asked about their criticisms, Kennedy emphasized the need for farmers and the agricultural industry to be on board with the MAHA agenda.
“If we lose the farmers, the MAHA agenda is bankrupt,” he said. “We don’t want to put a single farmer out of business. What we want to do is create incentives and innovation to allow them to innovate themselves, to use less chemical intensive [methods,] but we’re not a nanny state.”
Collins also asked Kennedy about the affordability of whole foods compared to less expensive ultraprocessed options.
“It’s an illusion to think that processed food is cheap, because you end up paying for it with diabetes, you end up paying for it with autoimmune dysregulation, with mitochondrial dysfunction, with inflammation, and you end up paying much higher costs in the long run,” he said.
Skeptical of medical advice
Kennedy also doubled down on comments during a budget hearing last week, when he said that Americans should not take medical advice from him.
“They probably shouldn’t take medical advice from any HHS secretary,” he said Thursday. “I’m somebody who is not a physician. But they should also be skeptical about any medical advice. They need to do their own research.”
Kennedy pointed to frustrations with medical experts during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I would say, be skeptical of authority. My father told me that when I was a young kid, people in authority lie,” the health secretary said.