Letter to the Editor: Kennedy’s statements about autism are dangerous and completely biased

I am the mother to a 6-year-old non-verbal child with level 3 autism with global developmental delay. I am writing to implore that people take the initiative to dig into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statements that he has made about autism.

The verbiage he used is very damaging to the Autism community and their families. He has called them a disease, a tragedy and began a witch hunt into the “epidemic” of autism by only looking into environmental factors despite 80 years of research suggesting a very strong (60 to 90 percent) genetic component. 

Many things he stated were wrong or misguided. He stated that the “epidemic” began in the 1980s. Autism was originally considered to be childhood schizophrenia in 1911. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) finally defined in 1980 that autism was a disorder separate from schizophrenia. That would be why the “epidemic” began. There was finally diagnosed criteria and a separation from a completely different mental health condition that allowed doctors to differentiate and diagnose the condition. 

Kennedy said autistic people can’t live normal lives or do things such as writing a poem, playing baseball or going to the bathroom unassisted — which is simply not true. Many speculate that Emily Dickinson had Autism due to her restrictive behaviors and antisocial behaviors. Click here to read about a professional baseball player with autism. Click here for a list of famous athletes with autism.

Autism Spectrum Disorder has three diagnosed levels:

• Level 1 (mild): People require support and may have difficulty with social interactions and may exhibit inflexible behavior.
• Level 2 (moderate): People require substantial support. They have more pronounced difficulties with social communication and may exhibit repetitive behaviors that are obvious to the casual observer.
• Level 3 (severe): People requiring very substantial support. They have severe deficits in verbal and nonverbal social communication skills, and their behaviors significantly impair day-to-day functioning. 

The CDC says approximately 26 percent of children diagnosed with autism are classified as level 3, the only level of autism that would restrict children in the way in which RFK Jr. has made his claims. His generalizations do not apply to all of the children with this diagnosis. A fraction of a percentage of the children in the United States will live their lives in the restricted way he has claimed that all autistic people live. These claims severely diminish the accomplishments of autistic people everywhere, including people such as Dr. Temple Grandin, Albert Einstein, Dr. Vernon Smith and actor Anthony Hopkins.

Autistic people and their families have worked for decades to help anyone diagnosed with autism feel accepted and loved by their communities. Kennedy’s verbiage is discriminatory and completely casts aside all autistic people despite their diagnosed levels or their level of function. 

Kennedy selected David Geier to lead the research into the causes of autism, but they have admitted they are not looking at genetic components, only environmental factors which will inevitably lead to biased results. Geier is not a doctor and does not have a medical license. He is a well-known vaccine skeptic and has been disciplined in the past for practicing medicine without a license. 

Kennedy and his team are only investigating environmental components while disregarding actual scientists and doctor’s decades worth of research, including a 2020 genetic study that identified 102 autism-related genes involved in early brain development.

The claims being perpetuated by this team are dangerous to the autistic community and completely biased.

Mackenzie Taylor
Kahoka, Missouri