Autism rates continue to rise steadily nationwide, primarily due to improved screening and increased diagnosis, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But in a news conference Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disputed some of the conclusions drawn by the CDC, which he oversees, instead attributing the climb in autism rates to "environmental exposure." Kennedy alarmed autism experts further by calling the rise in cases an "epidemic" and saying autism is a "preventable" disease and that studying genetic factors was a "dead end."
"Claiming that Autism is 'preventable' is not science based, and places unnecessary blame on people, parents and families," the Autism Society of America wrote in response to Kennedy's remarks. "Autism is not a chronic disease, nor is it a childhood disease — it is a lifelong developmental condition; it is not an epidemic."
The CDC report released Tuesday showed autism has increased nearly fivefold since the CDC started tracking it in 2000. In 2022, 1 in 31 8-year-olds had autism, compared to 1 in 36 in 2020. In 2000, the rate was 1 in 150. The CDC used 2022 data from health and school records in 14 states and Puerto Rico for its report. Researchers selected 8-year-olds, because most children with autism have been diagnosed by that age.
Though autism was still more prevalent in boys than girls, the new data showed the differentiation was getting smaller: In 2022, autism was 3.4 times more prevalent in boys than girls, a drop from 3.8 times higher in 2020. Asian-American children had the highest prevalence rate, at 3.8%, followed by Black children (3.7%), Hispanic children (3.3%) and white children (2.8%).
Part of the rise in prevalence is "consistent with increased access to and provision of identification services among previously underserved groups" and "improvement in the identification of girls" with autism, the report said.
But Kennedy argued that "we need to move away from … this ideology that the autism prevalence increases – the relentless increases – are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition or changing diagnostic criteria."
Kennedy said genes may "provide a vulnerability" to the development of autism, but that an "environmental toxin" was to blame.
"We know there is a clear genetic contribution. That is not in question," Catherine Lord, a psychologist and autism researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the New York Times. "The question is, could it interact with environment? Could it be that someone who has a genetic risk for autism is then exposed to something that then results in autism?"
Kristyn Roth, chief marketing officer for the Autism Society of America, told NPR that further autism research "has to be rooted in science and facts. And to definitively say that autism is caused by an environmental factor or toxin is not rooted in known science right now."
Kennedy said autism research will be conducted in a new chronic disease division under the Administration for Healthy America. There will be a "series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it," Kennedy said.
During his confirmation hearings in late January, Kennedy cited a flawed paper suggesting there's evidence that vaccines cause autism, despite studies having debunked vaccines as a factor. Kennedy did not bring up the subject Wednesday.
