RFK Jr.’s autism registry
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s been facing backlash over anti-scientific, offensive and belittling remarks he made about the basic abilities of autistic people, is launching a disease registry to track Americans with autism. The news raises a host of data security concerns, in addition to questions about how Kennedy might use the data to advance his conspiratorial and harmful health agenda.Advocates for people with autism have decried Kennedy’s recent comments that autism is a “preventable” disease that “destroys families,” and Kennedy has hired a discredited vaccine researcher to investigate debunked claims that autism and vaccines are linked. So the idea that the health secretary wants to compile a database of Americans who have a condition he seems intent on spreading falsehoods about is more than a little suspect.
CBS News reports: “Between 10 and 20 outside groups of researchers will be given grant funding and access to the records to produce Kennedy’s autism studies.”
Read more at CBS News.