O. Rose Broderick , 2025-04-15 22:48:00
A new federal report suggests that U.S. autism rates are rising modestly, an increase that health researchers said reflected expanded diagnostic tools and access to care, among other factors. But health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instead has pointed to the data as evidence of a growing crisis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report says that 3.2% of kids surveyed in 2022 have autism spectrum disorder, a slight uptick from the 2.8% of kids surveyed in 2020 for the previous report. The report also confirmed a recent trend that autism prevalence is higher in non-white kids than in white kids.
“That interesting switch reflects the wide availability of [autism] services available to ethnic minority families — that’s a good sign,” said Eric Fombonne, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. “I don’t think that means they are more vulnerable to autism.”
While autism researchers and autistic self-advocates expected this increase, Health and Human Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke in dire tones on Fox News last week and plans to hold a press conference Wednesday to talk about the “alarming increase.”
“This is an epidemic like nothing we’ve ever seen before. It dwarfs the Covid epidemic,” he said on Fox.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed 7 million people globally so far. Equating autism — a developmental disability that affects how a person experiences the world — with a deadly and destabilizing virus is fearmongering and will only increase stigma surrounding the condition, said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.
“You don’t die of autism, you live as an autistic person,” said Gross. “RFK Jr. is turning back the clock on autism rhetoric and [dragging] us backwards by decades.”
Kennedy’s “epidemic” comment comes on the heels of last week’s Cabinet meeting, when he announced that HHS would undertake a “massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of autism by September — merely five months away. Kennedy has spent decades asserting a disproven link between vaccines and autism. While researchers are still studying autism, its origins, and how best to care for autistic people, the science is settled on vaccines — they don’t cause autism.
“You will not find anyone wanting to embark on any new study of that kind because it would be ridiculous. It’s a waste of time and money,” said Fombonne, who was part of a group of epidemiologists whose studies helped disprove the link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism.
Clinicians have expanded the diagnostic scope of autism in recent decades to include more people and ensure that marginalized communities receive adequate care, too. That shift has been captured in the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, which started tracking the number and characteristics of children with autism in the United States in 2000. The latest report included surveys of 8-year-olds and was conducted in 2022 across 16 sites in the U.S. In 2022, 1 in 31 kids were found to have autism spectrum disorder, compared to 1 in 150 kids in 2000.
Prevalence varies tremendously by state and demographic. A site in Texas had fewer than 1 in 100 kids, while the state of California had a rate closer to 1 in 18 kids. When talking about the survey on Fox News, Kennedy discussed the high rates for black boys. He said the incidence rates were as high as 1 in 10 kids, but the actual rates are half as high, 1 in 20 kids. (HHS did not respond to a request for comment about Kennedy’s data mixup.)
In the past, many Black autistic boys would have been diagnosed with ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder, said Finn Gardiner, the director of policy and advocacy at the Autistic People of Color Fund. Autism was more associated with white boys than any other demographic.
Prevalence rates for black boys are rising because diagnosticians are looking for the signs of autism in young Black children and making a greater emphasis to treat this population’s needs. Gardiner was pleased by the report because it suggests that more kids may be getting critical services.
Kennedy strikes a different tone. Rising autism rates are a “public health crisis” and must be investigated as part of his push to address chronic disease. The impending investigation is not just chilling, it’s also distracting, said Gardiner.
“Instead of trying to focus on making our lives better, we’re constantly having to react to whatever the administration is putting out, including this bogus investigation,” he said. “We should be out there trying to implement new policies that will improve our outcomes, but we’re fighting to keep the scraps that remain. It’s tiring.”