Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Autistic People Will ‘Never Hold A Job’ Or ‘Go On Date,’ Sparking Firestorm Of Criticism

Alessio AtriaApril 18, 2025, 2:09 pmNews >

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said rapidly growing autism rates in America are an “epidemic” and promised to find the “environmental toxin” causing it.

“Autism is – is increasing in prevalence at an alarming rate,” Kennedy said during a news conference.

“Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this,” he said. “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. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

On April 7, Kennedy said he would tell the CDC to stop recommending fluoride in drinking water.

He also cited a report released on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), saying that “the [Autism Spectrum Disorder] prevalence rate in eight-year-olds is now one in 31.

“There’s an extreme risk for boys overall,” he stated. “The risk for boys of getting an autism diagnosis in this country is now one in 20, and as high in California, which has the best data collection – so it probably also reflects the national trend of one in 12.5 boys.

“This is part of an unrelenting upward trend. The prevalence two years ago was one in 36. The trend is consistently upward, and most cases now are severe.

“So about 25% of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are non-verbal, non-toilet trained, and have other stereotypical features: headbanging, tactile and – and light sensitivities, stimming, toe locking, et cetera.

“One of the things that I think that we need to move away from today is this – is this ideology that this – that the autism diagnosis – that the autism prevalence increases – the relentless increases are simply artifacts of better diagnosis, better recognition, or changing diagnostic criteria.

“This epidemic denial has become a feature in the mainstream media, and it’s based on an industry canard, and I obviously – there are people who don’t want us to look at environmental exposures.

“It’s time for everybody to stop attributing this – to this ideology of epidemic denial.

“All you have to do is start reading a little science because the answer is very clear, and this is catastrophic for our country.

“[Autism] is a preventable disease. We know it’s an environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics; they can provide a vulnerability.

“Within three weeks and – probably, we’re hoping in two weeks – we’re going to announce a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing [Autism].

“This has not been done before, and we’re going to do it in a thorough and comprehensive way, and we’re going to get back to an with an answer to the American people very, very quickly.

Backlash to Kennedy’s comments was swift on social media. Civil rights attorney Areva Martin wrote, “Let’s get something straight: people with autism are not a burden. They are not a myth. And they are certainly not what Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to portray in that speech yesterday.”

During a private speech to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week, the HHS secretary mocked the Food and Drug Administration’s past decisions, claiming that the “Deep State” is real and alluding to previous CIA experiments on human mind control.

He also claimed that the FDA’s closeness to the food industry caused it to fail to address food contamination.