RFK Jr's autism comments place blame and shift research responsibility to parents, critics say

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Source: The Guardian

Mon 12 May 2025 07.00 EDT
Last modified on Mon 12 May 2025 07.01 EDT


Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, has intimated that parents are to blame for their children’s autism, and that they are responsible for researching every aspect of their children’s lives that could affect their development. “We have to recognize we are doing this to our children, and we need to put an end to it,” Kennedy said at his first press conference as health secretary.

In a recent interview with Dr Phil McGraw, Kennedy told parents to “do their own research” when it comes to vaccinating their kids, stating that scientists are still trying to understand whether the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes severe side effects like brain swelling (they know; it doesn’t). “You research the baby stroller, you research the foods that they’re getting, and you need to research the medicines that they’re taking as well,” he said.

These statements appear to blame parents for vaccinating their kids and causing autism, a developmental and neurological condition that is overwhelmingly genetic, said Jessica Calarco, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net. “That’s very much what he’s implying and how it’s going to be read,” Calarco said.

It’s a message that reminded Shannon Des Roches Rosa of the early days after her son’s diagnosis. In 2003, she subscribed to the then novel theory that vaccines could be linked to autism – to the point that she stopped vaccinating her children. She saw a doctor who specialized in treating autistic children, and he “had us doing all this pseudoscience and supplements and not vaccinating our kids”, Rosa said. “People were thinking we were having an autism epidemic when we weren’t. It was diagnosis and recognition,” she said. As study after study came out showing no link between vaccines and autism, Rosa began getting her kids regular shots once again. “There is no association between vaccines and autism.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/12/rfk-jr-autism-comments-blame-parents