--:-- Noel King: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes autism is preventable. He believes science can find the root cause, and he believes the root cause is something in our environment.
--:-- Noel King: This is coming from an environmental toxin, and somebody made a profit by putting that environmental toxin into our air, our water, our medicines, our food.
--:-- Noel King: Right now, the science suggests there may be environmental factors, among other things, at the root of autism. But it was RFK's description of autistic people that stoked outrage.
--:-- Noel King: This is the same press conference. 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.
--:-- Noel King: On Today Explained, what RFK gets wrong according to science and according to some people who did date and who found love on the spectrum.
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--:-- Noel King: RFK Jr.'s conviction that autism is caused by something in the environment, in the air or water or vaccines, simply cuts against what most science suggests, that environment may be a factor.
--:-- Noel King: So where did he get this idea?
--:-- Catherine Wu: I think certainly we have to acknowledge that, you know, by the early 2000s, this idea that autism was maybe caused by vaccines and, you know, this has been pretty thoroughly debunked over and over again.
--:-- Catherine Wu: But this idea had sort of entered the mainstream in large part due to this since retracted study published by Andrew Wakefield that seemed to draw that link.
--:-- Catherine Wu: The conclusion was that there is a bowel disease in children with autism, which is new, which has not been investigated before.
--:-- Catherine Wu: That this may well be related to the developmental regression since they had occurred at around the same time.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And that the association, the parental association with MMR exposure needed to be thoroughly investigated.
--:-- Catherine Wu: He is a former physician who was at one point studying vaccines and autism.
--:-- Catherine Wu: A decade-old study that said vaccines cause autism is now being called an elaborate fraud.
--:-- Catherine Wu: The allegations against me and against my colleagues are both unfounded and unjust.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Did you have some sort of preconceived notion of a link between the vaccine, MMR, and autism before you conducted this study?
--:-- Catherine Wu: Absolutely not.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Dr. Gupta, please, I urge you, go and read my book. You will understand it. Many people don't.
--:-- Catherine Wu: This was a hugely problematic study.
--:-- Catherine Wu: It turns out the data was cherry-picked and manipulated.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And, you know, Wakefield himself had conflicts of interest that certainly made it in his best interest to seemingly find such a link.
--:-- Catherine Wu: You did have a lawsuit against manufacturers of the MMR vaccine, didn't you?
--:-- Catherine Wu: I mean, didn't you have a financial conflict of interest?
--:-- Catherine Wu: If I could just answer, Anderson, the paper that was published in The Lancet It received not one cent of funding from lawyers or litigators.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Sir, did you not have a financial interest?
--:-- Catherine Wu: This is around the time when at least a few concerned mothers went to RFK in his capacity as an environmental lawyer saying, I'm really worried about some of the stuff that's in the vaccines that are being given to my kids.
--:-- Catherine Wu: She found my home. She came to it. She took out of the trunk of her car a pile of scientific studies that was 18 inches thick.
--:-- Catherine Wu: She put it on my front porch, my stoop, and then she rang the bell and then she pointed to that pile.
--:-- Catherine Wu: She said, I'm not leaving here.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Do you read those?
--:-- Catherine Wu: I don't know if this is why they've been behaving differently or they seem to be different from other kids.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Her son, Porter Bridges, had been a perfectly healthy kid, got a battery of vaccines when he was two and lost the ability to speak.
--:-- Catherine Wu: He lost the ability to, he lost his toilet training.
--:-- Catherine Wu: By this point, RFK started calling around different vaccine experts and started like interrogating this question in earnest.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And that seems to be where this idea really picked up for him.
--:-- Noel King: Now that RFK Jr. is heading up the Department of Health and Human Services, how is he changing the way that department approaches autism?
--:-- Catherine Wu: RFK has been really pushing this idea that HHS is going to lead a bunch of new studies into determining the cause of autism.
--:-- Catherine Wu: We're going to follow this science no matter what it says, and we will have some of the answers by September.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Which, at the time he first started saying, this was, you know, like four and a half months away.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Like, very ambitious timeline.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And also incredibly ambitious to talk about finding a potentially singular cause of autism.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Which it's certainly not to imply that nothing at HHS was looking into autism or that people weren't paying attention to this.
--:-- Catherine Wu: But the idea here is that it was being really heavily prioritized and that this was coming directly from the White House, that it was certainly a priority for President Trump and, you know, his top allies to figure out the cause of autism and then to get rid of it.
--:-- Catherine Wu: How does he plan to do that? What is HHS going to do specifically?
--:-- Catherine Wu: You know, it's a fantastic question.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And I actually don't have a great answer for you because I'm not sure anyone has a great answer for you, and I am including the folks at HHS.
--:-- Catherine Wu: The messaging around this has been incredibly muddled.
--:-- Catherine Wu: With such an ambitious timeline I mean they would need to be working I would say nonstop and they would still not even scratch the surface by September
--:-- Catherine Wu: But it seems that there is not a clear-cut plan.
--:-- Catherine Wu: To sort of illustrate this a little more, you know, there's been a lot of talk from Kennedy saying, So it's going to be done by credible scientists, by the most credible scientists from all over the world, and we're going to do it very, very quickly.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Then later at a press conference, He was talking about, you know, looking through electronic health records.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Because of AI and because of the digitalization of health records and the mass of health records that are now available to us, we can do this much more quickly than has ever been done in the past.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Kind of mining existing literature to see if there's a link that's been missed or hasn't been definitively pinpointed.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And then, you know, there was additional talk out of NIH about how part of this effort may involve looking into private health data from pharmacies, hospitals, even smartwatches.
--:-- Catherine Wu: But some of that was later walked back after, you know, a bunch of privacy concerns emerged.
--:-- Catherine Wu: So it seems like there is a lot of chatter about there being this incredibly ambitious, expensive, accelerated effort with a goal very clearly in mind.
--:-- Catherine Wu: But I'm not sure a plan has really come into formation yet.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And frankly, it may take until September for a good plan to come together if that is indeed their intention.
--:-- Noel King: As they attempt to find the cause of autism, we know that RFK thinks vaccines cause it.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Do we have a sense that he wants government scientists to prove that is true?
--:-- Catherine Wu: I would suspect that is influencing their thinking quite a bit.
--:-- Catherine Wu: I mean, it's already been reported that he has tasked AHS with looking into that link, you know, under the supervision of this guy named David Geyer, who himself has a history of really hawking this idea that vaccines cause autism.
--:-- Catherine Wu: Again, repeatedly disproved, but there are certain people who will not let that bone go.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And then, you know, with this new HHS-wide effort that's come into the news this month, Kennedy has not leveraged vaccines as often.
--:-- Catherine Wu: You know, his discourse has primarily been around, you know, a quote-unquote environmental toxin.
--:-- Catherine Wu: He's talked a lot about this idea that someone in industry has been putting this out into the environment, it's, you know, poisoning our kids and someone's making a profit over this.
--:-- Catherine Wu: I do not know of any evidence that, you know, really strongly supports that.
--:-- Catherine Wu: I don't know to what he's referring, but it seems very clear that no matter what toxin or toxins or exposures he has in mind, he does have a select few in mind and he's already crafted the story that he is setting out to prove.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And I think the huge issue with that is that's just not how you do science.
--:-- Catherine Wu: You don't go out to prove a narrative that you've already decided is true.
--:-- Catherine Wu: You go out and try and look for the evidence and see if a story emerges that is supported by the evidence that you find.
--:-- Catherine Wu: You know, in recent decades, the definitions of autism have changed, the way that physicians have approached treating autism have changed, and, you know, awareness of autism has certainly grown.
--:-- Catherine Wu: But I think really the only consensus that has emerged over decades of research is that this is a really complicated, multifactorial condition.
--:-- Catherine Wu: It may even be unfair to call it a single condition because of how diverse it is.
--:-- Catherine Wu: And there's a really strong genetic component.
--:-- Catherine Wu: So to really just hook onto this idea that it's something in the environment that is causing this quote-unquote epidemic, it's a potentially very problematic way to view things, especially if that's going to influence policy around handling autism in this country.
--:-- Noel King: That was Catherine Wu of The Atlantic.
--:-- Noel King: Coming up, life and love and RFK's mess, too, on the Spectrum.
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--:-- Noel King: Support for the show today comes from LifeKit, the podcast from NPR.
--:-- Noel King: What's in your LifeKit?
--:-- Noel King: I'm asking.
--:-- Noel King: They didn't ask that.
--:-- Noel King: Every day you have to make choices that might shape the direction of your life.
--:-- Noel King: But you can't flip to the back of the book to find an answer key.
--:-- Noel King: Instead, you can listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
--:-- Noel King: Life Kit offers real stories about common issues like relationships, finances, parenting, and your career.
--:-- Noel King: If you're looking to move with more intention or just need thoughtful guidance on living better, Life Kit delivers strategies to help you make meaningful, sustainable change from fitness routines to mental resilience, navigating personal goals to tackling burnout.
--:-- Noel King: Each episode is full of relevant insights and clear takeaways about things we all could use a little help with.
--:-- Noel King: Life Kit wants to help you approach your own life with confidence and clarity, and walk away with a game plan you can implement right away.
--:-- Noel King: Enough from me. Go listen to the show, Life Kit.
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--:-- Noel King: Today Explained is back with James B Jones who works in technical support.
--:-- James B Jones: I always enjoyed working with computers and electronics.
--:-- James B Jones: Always been very passionate about that.
--:-- Noel King: And Danny Bowman, the founder and CEO of DannyMation.
--:-- Danny Bowman: I help students on the autism spectrum by helping them educate, elevate, and empowering them by helping them turn their passion in animation into a career with our one-on-one sessions.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And our animation camps.
--:-- Noel King: Now, if you know those voices, and you very well might, it's because James and Danny are cast members on the hit show Love on the Spectrum about autistic people searching for love, which is not always easy.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Oh, yes. Well, I admit I was having difficulty with my search for love before I heard of the series.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Actually, Love on the Spectrum has changed my life in so many ways.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Yes, I've met new people. I've made new friends.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And yes, I finally have found true love.
--:-- Danny Bowman: I cannot say enough positive, wonderful things about Shelley.
--:-- Danny Bowman: She's so amazing.
--:-- Danny Bowman: But yes, I could spend all day talking about her, but I know I can't distract us from the purpose of our meeting.
--:-- Noel King: But other than that, obviously, yes, my life has definitely improved quite significantly without a question.
--:-- Noel King: Tell me just quickly, tell me about Shelley. What's so great about her?
--:-- Danny Bowman: Shelley and I have so much in common.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And yes, we have very similar preferences in movies, music, and other hobbies and entertainment.
--:-- Danny Bowman: But what is it?
--:-- Danny Bowman: She also is fond of outdoor activities and hiking.
--:-- Danny Bowman: But at the same time, we complement each other.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We are not exact duplicates of each other.
--:-- Danny Bowman: She and I each inspire the other to grow and improve.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We each inspire the art to be the best that we can be.
--:-- Noel King: That sounds wonderful.
--:-- Noel King: Dani, have you met someone on the show?
--:-- Danny Bowman: Actually, for me, when it comes to finding the love, the person that I found, Henry, is outside of the show.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Ooh, cool.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We first met each other in person at the Huntington Park Police Department when the police department did a fundraiser for autism acceptance.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And they were looking for a company or organization to help donate the funds.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Henry and the Huntington Park Police Department chose Dini Mason as the recipient of the funds.
--:-- Danny Bowman: So, and then as, so as Henry and I first, oh dear, I see I fumble with my words.
--:-- Noel King: That's okay. I do too. And I talk for a living. It's totally fine. I do it also.
--:-- Noel King: I think that's a pretty common thing.
--:-- Noel King: Keep going. Tell me about Henry. What's so cool about Henry?
--:-- Danny Bowman: What I really like about Henry is that he's really kind.
--:-- Danny Bowman: He's very understanding.
--:-- Danny Bowman: He takes me out to like wonderful dates.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Like, for example, he took me out to a wonderful South Coast winery as one of our getaways.
--:-- Danny Bowman: He definitely makes my dating experience so magical.
--:-- Noel King: I am so happy for both of you. I really am.
--:-- Noel King: Why, thank you. Thank you very much.
--:-- Noel King: So one of the reasons that we're talking today is that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made some comments not long ago about autistic people having limitations.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Well, can I start first?
--:-- Danny Bowman: Oh, of course you may.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Okay, it really honestly broke my heart because words like that don't describe reality.
--:-- Danny Bowman: They shape it.
--:-- Danny Bowman: They can either build people up or tear them down.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And the idea that autistic people are automatically a burden, that kind of thinking destroys hope.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And let's be clear, this isn't about politics.
--:-- Danny Bowman: It's not about being red, blue, or whatever side you're on.
--:-- Danny Bowman: It's about the language we use and how that language either fuels hope or crushes it.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We people on the autism spectrum are capable.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We can be capable human beings.
--:-- Danny Bowman: All we need is just a loving push from the support of our friends and family to definitely keep moving forward to independent, fulfilling lives.
--:-- Noel King: James, what did you think when you heard Secretary Kennedy make those remarks?
--:-- James B Jones: I was not at all pleased.
--:-- James B Jones: But sadly, I was not surprised because he has had a habit of saying things that I feel are very ignorant and uneducated, or sorry, uninformed is the better word there.
--:-- James B Jones: So I was not at all pleased and I felt it was necessary for me to respond.
--:-- James B Jones: I mean, I've been alive for 37 years, so I believe I have quite some experience.
--:-- James B Jones: I have many, many years of experience with this matter.
--:-- James B Jones: So I definitely feel that I am well qualified to speak about this.
--:-- Noel King: What do you mean by experience?
--:-- James B Jones: Do you mean you've heard lots of people criticize autistic people in a way that you think is unfair?
--:-- James B Jones: Yes, exactly.
--:-- James B Jones: And I have been in situations where in the past, my social skills were not as developed as they are now.
--:-- James B Jones: So through experience, I developed my social skills to the point where they are now.
--:-- Noel King: Let me ask you both a question.
--:-- Noel King: And, Dani, I'll start with you.
--:-- Noel King: The thing about those comments that got a lot of attention was when Secretary Kennedy kind of listed the limitations, as he sees them, of people with autism.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Do you believe that you have limitations?
--:-- Danny Bowman: Of course I do.
--:-- Danny Bowman: I do have some certain limitations, and especially because I have a hard, and I do have a challenge that I have called verbal apraxia, which means I have a hard time articulating with my words, or sometimes my words come out as a word salad, like earlier.
--:-- Danny Bowman: However, as we people on the autism spectrum are working together to challenge these roadblocks, we can make it better.
--:-- Noel King: James, what about you?
--:-- James B Jones: Oh, yes.
--:-- James B Jones: Of course, everyone has limits.
--:-- James B Jones: That is correct.
--:-- James B Jones: And I will confess that some of my limits, not all of them, but some of my limits may perhaps be related to my autism.
--:-- James B Jones: But I have been able to, I believe to say overcome those limits is not proper terminology, is not a proper way to word it.
--:-- James B Jones: But I have been able to to minimize those limitations to live with them or to no i'm sorry to work with them to work around them yes yes and um and i i certainly must say that the idea that people with autism are incapable of driving vehicles paying bills or living in apparently is completely false um i have i've had my driver's license for 20 years since i was 17
--:-- James B Jones: I pay practically all of my own expenses.
--:-- James B Jones: I work a 40 per week job with benefits that I held steadily since 2017
--:-- James B Jones: Other than the fact that I still live with my parents I believe myself to be quite independent self
--:-- James B Jones: And the fact that I still live with my parents is due to factors that are beyond my control.
--:-- James B Jones: Because houses are extremely expensive right now.
--:-- James B Jones: And that, of course, is obviously not something I can control, but that obviously is probably not something we'll be discussing right here.
--:-- Noel King: Well, James, one thing I wanted to add, And Noel, can I add something to that?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, yeah, of course.
--:-- Noel King: I understand why people might think of that if we're a burden, but if you have met me as a kid, you wouldn't say that.
--:-- Noel King: Well, I didn't speak until I was almost six.
--:-- Noel King: And when I moved in with my aunt and uncle at 11, I barely had any functional language and struggled to connect with anyone.
--:-- Noel King: But they didn't see it as a burden.
--:-- Noel King: I believe my mother has said it took me slightly longer to be capable of speech than it does most children, most infants.
--:-- Noel King: But my mother mentioned, though, that I was able to speak in complete sentences immediately rather than one or two words at a time, as is the case for most children.
--:-- Noel King: Oh, yes.
--:-- Noel King: Well, and I have to tell you that you're pretty good at paying taxes.
--:-- Noel King: And we, and of course, we both pay taxes.
--:-- Noel King: And I love writing poetry also.
--:-- Noel King: Can I ask you guys a sensitive question?
--:-- Noel King: I suppose.
--:-- Noel King: You may ask whether or not we answer as in our matter entirely.
--:-- Noel King: I think that sounds fair.
--:-- Noel King: Okay, so after Secretary Kennedy made those comments, a lot of people were clearly upset, including a lot of people like the two of you who have autism.
--:-- Noel King: I also read some essays by parents of kids who are severely autistic who said, you know, this actually does speak to my experience.
--:-- Noel King: My kid is really having trouble and probably won't ever get a job or write a poem or date.
--:-- Noel King: And they said, I feel like Secretary Kennedy really saw me and was speaking to me.
--:-- Noel King: Whether I like his position on vaccines, whether or not I think he addressed the issue sensitively enough or not, he is talking about what it's like to be me as a parent of a kid like this.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Well, I do have a cousin who is severely autistic.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And even though he seemed to be getting better at knowing how to use the restroom by himself, I kind of do feel bad for my cousin.
--:-- Danny Bowman: But you're right that there's other nonverbal people on the spectrum that can get a degree.
--:-- Danny Bowman: I met this one lady who is nonverbal and is capable of getting a PhD, and she uses a communication device in that she proves potential.
--:-- Danny Bowman: She could definitely do it.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Then again, no matter nonverbal or not, people on the spectrum still need the loving push.
--:-- Noel King: We talked to a reporter earlier in the show who said one of the distinctive things about Secretary Kennedy is that he came out and he said, we are going to find what causes autism quickly and we're going to do something about it.
--:-- James B Jones: Oh, I do not like that at all.
--:-- James B Jones: Yeah.
--:-- James B Jones: Tell me why.
--:-- James B Jones: Tell me why.
--:-- James B Jones: For anyone who has studied history, those are very ominous words indeed.
--:-- James B Jones: Because autism is is a psychological a neurological condition
--:-- James B Jones: The reason that more people are diagnosed with autism is because doctors and um psychologists have have become more adept at identifying at diagnosing autism
--:-- James B Jones: Plus of course people who have autism are not as afraid to hide their condition to hide their symptoms as they as they may have been in ages past
--:-- James B Jones: And of course, society is much more accepting of autism in recent years as well.
--:-- James B Jones: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a lot of power.
--:-- James B Jones: He is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, which means in his role, he can do things for people with autism.
--:-- James B Jones: He can order that research be conducted.
--:-- James B Jones: He can draw attention to the cause.
--:-- Noel King: What do you want RFK Jr. to know about you?
--:-- Danny Bowman: So I would say, please listen.
--:-- Danny Bowman: Listen to people who actually live this experience.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We don't need pity.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We need opportunity.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We don't need stereotypes.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We need understanding.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We're not broken.
--:-- Danny Bowman: We're just wired differently.
--:-- Danny Bowman: And given the chance, we can do incredible things.
--:-- Danny Bowman: All we need is just a loving push.
--:-- James B Jones: Okay, I'll be diplomatic to say, I wish Mr. Keddie would resign from his position, let someone who is actually competent take that role.
--:-- James B Jones: That's a lot more diplomatic than what I was originally planning to say.
--:-- James B Jones: So the Secretary of Health and Human Services needs to be someone who actually understands these various issues, who understands matters of this nature.
--:-- James B Jones: Yes, we need to provide support, support mechanisms for people who have autism or similar neurological conditions.
--:-- James B Jones: People who have autism or similar conditions need special programs that are tailored for them.
--:-- James B Jones: Every student needs to have their own customized, their own personalized plan, curriculum.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you both for taking the time to do this.
--:-- Noel King: You both articulated your point of view really well.
--:-- Noel King: And I'm very happy for both of you that you've met nice people out in the world.
--:-- Noel King: It's very hard out there.
--:-- Noel King: So good for you.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you very much.
--:-- Noel King: James and I, we're both grateful to be part of this podcast.
--:-- Noel King: And we definitely have to work together to prove RFK Jr. wrong.
--:-- Noel King: Danny Bowman and James B. Jones.
--:-- Noel King: Love on the Spectrum is on Netflix.
--:-- Noel King: Gabrielle Bourbet and Avishai Artsy made today's show.
--:-- Noel King: Amin El-Sadi edited.
--:-- Noel King: Laura Bullard fact-checked.
--:-- Noel King: Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christensdottir are our engineers.
--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you.
