Calley Means, a top adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., told Newsmax on Thursday that the Trump administration is determined to find the cause of autism, despite resistance from the medical establishment.
"When we look at autism, you've got to ask, is this an outlier from the rates of every chronic disease being at all-time highs?" Means told "Finnerty." "We have the highest rates of pediatric cancer, pediatric obesity, pediatric diabetes, pediatric cardiology issues, and yes, skyrocketing rates of autism."
Autism rates went from 1 in 100 among children born in 1992 to 1 in 31 for those born in 2014, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Kennedy reportedly said Wednesday that the U.S. is experiencing an "autism epidemic" that cannot be explained by "genes" or "better diagnostic criteria."
"If President Trump and Secretary Kennedy did anything in the last 100 days, they're talking about the interconnectivity, the poisoning that's happening to American children," Means said. "And yes, of course, no scientist would disagree if you pushed them: Autism is related to our microbiome, to the toxins. We don't know exactly what, but we should study it.
"Secretary Kennedy, President Trump, [National Institutes of Health Director] Jay Bhattacharya … we're going to figure out what's causing the autism epidemic. We're going to do real science, and they get attacked for that. You literally have the medical establishment attacking this administration for conducting science on issues that truly matter to America."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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