Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
Speaker 1: now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: Daily OS. It's Friday, the twenty fifth of April. I'm
Speaker 1: Lucy Tassel.
Speaker 2: I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 1: Last week, the US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior,
Speaker 1: announced an investigation into what he called the autism epidemic
Speaker 1: and called the condition a preventable disease. Kennedy's interest in
Speaker 1: the causes of autism is long standing, but he's never
Speaker 1: had a platform as large as leading the US Health
Speaker 1: Department before. In today's podcast, we'll explain Kennedy's history with autism,
Speaker 1: the new investigation, and what it might mean for autistic Americans.
Speaker 2: Lucy, before we dive into this story, because there's a
Speaker 2: lot there and I want to unpack it all. But
Speaker 2: I do think that a good starting point is by
Speaker 2: actually just explaining autism, because that is at the center
Speaker 2: of this story. What is autism and how does it manifest?
Speaker 1: So you've probably heard the phrase on the spectrum, possibly
Speaker 1: in the context of the show Love on the Spectrum.
Speaker 1: That's referring to the autism spectrum. So autism is a
Speaker 1: neurological condition. It can manifest in a number of different
Speaker 1: ways and to different degrees, which is why we talk
Speaker 1: about it as being a spectrum. It's diagnosed through developmental
Speaker 1: assessments and behavioral observations, and it's often characterized by differences
Speaker 1: in communication styles and issues with sensory processing. In terms
Speaker 1: of autism in Australia, where we are, according to the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Statistics, autistic Australians are nearly six times more
Speaker 1: likely to be unemployed than Australians without a disability, and
Speaker 1: the majority of young autistic Australians experience difficulty in school settings, and.
Speaker 2: So that paints a picture as to how autism manifests.
Speaker 2: But do we understand what causes autism?
Speaker 1: Well, we know as much about the causes of autism
Speaker 1: as we do about the causes of any other kind
Speaker 1: of neurological condition, which is to say, not much. But
Speaker 1: we think it could be a range of things. It
Speaker 1: could be genetic, it could be something to do with
Speaker 1: brain development. I think what it's important to say is
Speaker 1: that we don't know as clearly as we do for example,
Speaker 1: that if you smoke cigarettes your risk of cancer increases.
Speaker 1: We don't have that same cause and effect for neurological conditions,
Speaker 1: including autism. However, in the late nineteen nineties, there was
Speaker 1: a man named Andrew Wakefield who published a medical study
Speaker 1: which he said suggested that a routine childhood vaccine, specifically
Speaker 1: the MMR vaccine, which is for measles, mumps, and rubella,
Speaker 1: causes autism. His study involved twelve children, eight of whom
Speaker 1: had been diagnosed with all autism within a month of
Speaker 1: receiving this routine vaccine.
Speaker 2: I do think it's important to say here that a
Speaker 2: sample size of twelve is by no means comprehensive and
Speaker 2: is not, you know, even just by journalistic standard, something
Speaker 2: that we would necessarily report on me even today. What's
Speaker 2: happened since that research was handed down.
Speaker 1: Yes, this sample size was one of the many issues
Speaker 1: with the study. I should note also, according to the
Speaker 1: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center, the MMR vaccine
Speaker 1: is administered around the time that children are most commonly
Speaker 1: diagnosed with autism, meaning it was a case of two
Speaker 1: things happening around the same time being wrongly considered as linked.
Speaker 1: A useful example might be I get caught in the
Speaker 1: rain one day and a couple of weeks later, I
Speaker 1: get diagnosed with depression. It doesn't mean that because I
Speaker 1: got caught in the rain and I got wet and
Speaker 1: I didn't like it, that I became depressed, even though
Speaker 1: I was sad on that day. It just means that
Speaker 1: these two happened within a couple of weeks of each other,
Speaker 1: and that is what the scientific community now suggests was
Speaker 1: the case with Wakefield's study. So Andrew Wakefield actually later
Speaker 1: lost his medical license as a result of this study
Speaker 1: and some of the research processes that he went through
Speaker 1: to produce the study. It was found that he had
Speaker 1: breached professional ethics and forced children to undergo unnecessary medical procedures.
Speaker 1: The paper itself has been comprehensively debunked by many many scientists.
Speaker 1: But there's a saying coined by American civil rights activist
Speaker 1: Medga Evers, you can kill a man, but you can't
Speaker 1: kill an idea. Wakefield's official medical career is dead, but
Speaker 1: the idea that he put into the world is very
Speaker 1: much alive. Someone else who's used that phrase is Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy's uncle John F. Kennedy, who was President of the
Speaker 1: United States in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we have done a whole podcast about JFK.
Speaker 2: Anyone that listened to that knows that I'm ABS, but
Speaker 2: we're going to put that aside for this episode because
Speaker 2: we're not talking about JFK. We are talking about RFK Junior.
Speaker 2: So Robert F. Kennedy talk to me about his ascension
Speaker 2: to becoming the health secretary, because it's quite an unorthodox
Speaker 2: path here, and I want to focus on his career
Speaker 2: before we get to what he's now claiming.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, Kennedy's uncle was US President. JFK was
Speaker 1: assassinated in November nineteen sixty three. The Kennedy family as
Speaker 1: a whole has been a huge part of US political life,
Speaker 1: specifically with the Democratic Party for many decades. Kennedy's own father,
Speaker 1: Robert F. Kennedy Senior, was Attorney General to his brother
Speaker 1: and mounted his own presidential campaign before he was also
Speaker 1: assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. As for RFK Junior, he
Speaker 1: worked as an environmental lawyer for many years. He sued
Speaker 1: several major companies for pollution in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, specifically, he has said he
Speaker 1: was approached by a woman named Sarah Bridges, who said
Speaker 1: her young son had become very ill and had been
Speaker 1: diagnosed with autism after receiving a routine vaccination. Kennedy then
Speaker 1: became convinced that mercury, which is a chemical element used
Speaker 1: in vaccines for preservation, was endangering children. Now, I should
Speaker 1: note mercury was once used in vaccines, or rather a
Speaker 1: preservative derived from mercury. It was in the process of
Speaker 1: being phased out when Kennedy kind of took up this crusade.
Speaker 1: He published an article about the supposed connection in Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone magazine, which was later several years later withdrawn because
Speaker 1: it is not accurate. Following that, Kennedy chaired a nonprofit
Speaker 1: organization called Children's Health Defense, which is an anti vaccine organization,
Speaker 1: and he repeatedly said he believes a range of conditions
Speaker 1: from food allergies to autism are tied to these routine,
Speaker 1: standard childhood vaccinations. So that kind of explains his interest
Speaker 1: in the world of health.
Speaker 2: And so what happened between this interest specifically I cornered
Speaker 2: the interest in say, the anti vax movement, to then
Speaker 2: him becoming health secretary. What happened in between.
Speaker 1: In early twenty twenty three, So just jumping ahead a
Speaker 1: little bit, he launched a campaign for the US presidency.
Speaker 1: He was running as a Democrat. Later that year, he
Speaker 1: dropped out of the party and went independent. He then
Speaker 1: suspended his campaign in August twenty twenty four, and he
Speaker 1: endorsed Donald Trump, who, as we know, went on to
Speaker 1: win election and become President of the United States for
Speaker 1: the second time. And then after Trump's election, he appointed
Speaker 1: Kennedy as the head of the Health Department, which means
Speaker 1: he the Health Secretary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was an understanding that when RFK dropped
Speaker 2: out that there was some agreement between him and Trump,
Speaker 2: and so when he was announced as Health Secretary, I
Speaker 2: don't know that there was a lot of surprise. I
Speaker 2: think people really expected it. Yeah, But he's now been
Speaker 2: in the role for a couple of months, and last
Speaker 2: week he announced this new major investigation. What is it?
Speaker 1: According to Kennedy, this investigation is going to be led
Speaker 1: by one of the major US government health bodies, which
Speaker 1: is the National Institutes of Health. It's going to be
Speaker 1: focused on the quote root causes of autism, including, according
Speaker 1: to Kennedy, environmental toxins. The National Institutes has also been
Speaker 1: tasked with examining food additives, mold, pesticide, medicines, and ultrasounds
Speaker 1: done during pregnancy. Kennedy said, they've been asked to quote,
Speaker 1: come back with an answer for the American people very
Speaker 1: quickly as to what he's saying is the cause of autism. Now,
Speaker 1: what's interesting to me is this investigation was announced on
Speaker 1: the heels of another US government research project, this one
Speaker 1: conducted by another government body, the Centers for Disease Control
Speaker 1: and Prevention aka the CDC.
Speaker 2: Lots of people would be familiar from COVID with the CDC.
Speaker 1: Yes, the CDC's study found one in thirty one eight
Speaker 1: year olds in the US are autistic, which is up
Speaker 1: from one in thirty six in twenty twenty. The results
Speaker 1: came from data collected from sixteen different locations across the country.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, the report rejected the idea
Speaker 1: that quote living in certain communities put children at greater
Speaker 1: risk for developing autism, so effectively saying there are not
Speaker 1: environmental factors. Instead, the CDC said the differences in diagnosis
Speaker 1: rates across these sixteen different communities quote might be due
Speaker 1: to differences in the availability of services for early detection
Speaker 1: and evaluation. So a fairly simple ar Kennedy then announced
Speaker 1: this new investigation right after having received this previous investigation,
Speaker 1: which suggested that environmental factors like living in certain communities
Speaker 1: don't impact autism.
Speaker 2: So his investigation is into whether that is the case
Speaker 2: or not. What's been the reaction to this announcement.
Speaker 1: The announcement sparked quite a bit of backlash from health experts,
Speaker 1: from disability advocates, and from autism support organizations. In a
Speaker 1: statement responding to the investigation, the US Autism Society rejected
Speaker 1: Kennedy's claims, labeling his language as quote both inaccurate and stigmatizing.
Speaker 1: They called it harmful rhetoric and a harmful policy direction.
Speaker 1: That quote reflects a troubling lack of understanding, empathy and respect.
Speaker 1: Part of that backlash centered around not just the investigation,
Speaker 1: but also around something that he said during.
Speaker 3: His Autism destroys families. And these are kids who will
Speaker 3: never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, i'll play baseball,
Speaker 3: they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on
Speaker 3: a date. Many of them will than ever use a toilet. Unassessed.
Speaker 1: Now, as I said, autism is a spectrum, so that
Speaker 1: is not something that can be applied to every autistic person,
Speaker 1: and even though there are some people for whom that
Speaker 1: does apply, advocates say these characteristics don't make them of
Speaker 1: any less value as a person, nor does it quote
Speaker 1: destroy their family necessarily. Later in the week, Kennedy announced
Speaker 1: he wants a registry of all autistic Americans, which has
Speaker 1: raised concerns around people's privacy as well about what has
Speaker 1: historically happened when governments make a list of people based
Speaker 1: on a single characteristic. So it will be very interesting
Speaker 1: to see what the outcome of this investigation and what
Speaker 1: other moves Kennedy makes during his time as Health Secretary
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2: Lucy, thank you so much for explaining that story, and
Speaker 2: it's definitely one that we will be keeping a really
Speaker 2: close eye on to see what happens with this investigation
Speaker 2: and what the Trump administration plans to do with that.
Speaker 2: And if you have any questions about this story, please
Speaker 2: feel free to leave some comments in our Spotify and
Speaker 2: we'll be sure to.
Speaker 3: Get back to you.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunje lung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz
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Speaker 1: the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.