Obsessed with Autism

Rain Man. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Temple Grandin. On the spectrum. Neurodivergent.

Sound familiar? The likelihood that they do shows how, in a relatively short time, public awareness about autism and acceptance of the autistic have increased dramatically and largely favorably. This follows the advances that medical scientists have made in diagnosing and helping those with autism.

Autism is a neuro-developmental condition that affects to varying degrees an individual’s perception, socialization, social interaction, and communication. It also has become mired in unfounded, extreme ideas about its causes and prevalence, and about how it shows up in individuals.

Conspiracy theorists have embraced scraps of information to feed a notion that vaccines are a key cause in the increased number of autism diagnoses. The misinformation has proven hard to debunk, despite overpowering evidence that there is no link. And the problem has worsened in a way that many families, doctors, and medical experts could never envision.

That’s because autism spectrum disorder is the focus, even obsession, of one of the nation’s top health officials — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the head of the huge federal Health and Human Services agency. He has targeted autism from the start of his term at HHS, making problematic assertions about the syndrome and vowing to determine its cause in mere months and to respond accordingly.

While advocates typically are pleased when the power of the federal government is mobilized against a health challenge — think of “cancer moonshots” or campaigns against HIV-AIDS or maternal mortality — the Kennedy-led focus on autism is stoking fear and concern. Knowing why also provides a disturbing window into what is going on at the top federal levels in U.S. health policy.

Personal footnote: My youngest son Brendan has severe autism. He’s now in his mid-30s and hasn’t said a word since he was five years old. Brendan needs full-time one-on-one help during his waking hours, and we’re fortunate to live in a community with plentiful resources for people like Brendan. Here is a video I recorded a few years ago about the spiritual aspects of raising a handicapped child.

As a parent of an autistic child, I obviously have a personal viewpoint about the subject of this month’s newsletter. But I like to think I’m an objective “just the facts ma’am” kind of guy. So what you’ll read in this newsletter is reality-based fact-driven journalism.

The troubled but hopeful history of mental disorders

History tells us that those whose minds work differently from most have suffered greatly.

Societies long have scorned, cast out, and even killed such individuals. They were turned into beggars, dependents of churches, jesters, and hermits. As cities boomed, they were locked up and abandoned in grim asylums. It took centuries before experts began to ask if morality demanded better conditions and care for these souls, including treatments to improve their well-being.

Science and medicine increased the scrutiny of the mind — seeing, characterizing, and diagnosing now-familiar disorders like schizophrenia and paranoia in the 19th and early 20th century. Attention in Europe and this country (notably at nearby Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore) also turned to mental patients and children with marked differences from their peers.

Developing terminology and characteristics

The names of the pioneering autism researchers include Paul Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss physician and psychiatrist; Leo Kanner, a doctor and psychiatrist; and Hans Asperger, an Austrian pediatrician.

Bleuler is credited with coining many terms including schizophrenia and what he thought to be a subset of that mental illness, autism. The latter term is how in 1911 he described patients who were severely detached from reality and isolated in a world of their own. Russian researchers, whose work has not been as widely known, published studies in the 1920s describing such severely withdrawn youngsters, whom they thought to be schizophrenic.

In the 1940s, Kanner and Asperger, separately, published studies on children with symptoms that became associated with syndromes named after each expert. Both conditions describe youngsters who display unusual, even spectacular capacities — notably in memory and artistic and mathematical endeavors that had become their special interests. These youngsters, however, also had impairment in their communication, socialization, and interaction with others. They often were severely withdrawn. In theories now discarded, some experts tied parenting styles and other factors to children’s brain disorders.

With decades of scientific study and observation, medical and psychiatric experts learned that the complex condition that they would designate formally as autism spectrum disorder has no singular cause. It has different symptoms and affects individuals in degrees of severity. It tends to run in families and is significantly rooted in genetics — and an array of other potential factors. As the New York Times reported:

“More than 100 genes have been associated with autism, but the disorder appears to result from a complex combination of genetic susceptibilities and environmental triggers. The [federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has a large-scale study on the risk factors that can contribute to autism, and researchers have examined dozens of potential triggers, including pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals and viral infections during pregnancy. Some research suggests that babies born to older parents — particularly an older father — may be at increased risk of autism. Other studies hint that premature birth or low birth weight could be associated with autism, which is often linked to high oxidative stress.

“The idea that such factors could also be involved in the overall rise in autism is convincing to Juergen Hahn, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who studies the computational systems biology of autism, given that both the number of children surviving premature birth and the average age of new parents are rising. But testing a hypothetical driver of autism would mean controlling for the endless list of other influences on early development and following the child well into adulthood, when some people now receive their diagnosis. ‘These are very complicated studies to conduct, especially if you want statistical certainty, and there are no easy answers,’ Dr. Hahn said. ‘Sometimes we just have to say we don’t know. And that always gives people room for speculation.’”

Awareness increases

Experts can say with certainty, the New York Times reported, that awareness and diagnosis of autism has grown, as reflected in the all-important reference work for researchers and clinicians: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It first mentioned autism in 1980, rapidly expanding the criteria and ages at which the syndrome could be recognized. The DSM has widened further the expert view, including diagnoses of Aspergers (a “social disorder that can be marked by a preoccupation with a single interest”) as part of the spectrum and seeing attention deficit disorder in combined diagnoses.

The newspaper says that the condition burst into public attention in the 1980s for further reasons:

“Until the 1980s, many people with autism were institutionalized, so parents were far less familiar with the hallmark traits of the disorder and typically did not recognize them or seek a diagnosis when they occurred in their own child. Then, in 1991, children with an autism diagnosis began to qualify for special services in schools, which gave parents an incentive to seek out and accept diagnoses. Around 2007, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that all children be screened for autism at 18 and 24 months, which experts believe led to a major uptick in detection.”

The heightened awareness and expanding diagnostic criteria are important reasons why researchers have found marked increases in reported autism, the New York Times has reported:

“The percentage of American children estimated to have autism spectrum disorder increased in 2022, continuing a long-running trend, according to data released [in April] by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among 8-year-olds, one in 31 were found to have autism in 2022, compared with 1 in 36 in 2020. That rate is nearly five times as high as the figure in 2000, when the agency first began collecting data. The health agency noted that the increase was most likely being driven by better awareness and screening, not necessarily because autism itself was becoming more common.”

Popular awareness of the condition also has increased, albeit with imperfections. Movies (like Rainman) and novels (like Curious Incident) featured characters with neurological differences. A larger-than-life advocate emerged in autistic academic and inventor Temple Grandin. And as more parents and young people had experiences with the varying degrees of the syndrome, conversations soon were sprinkled with references to its spectrum and how individuals could be neurodiverse and neurodivergent.

A conspiratorial convert who ascended

Extreme conspiratorial theories have existed about vaccines from the time they first became widespread to battle smallpox. While experience and evidence have proven in an overwhelming fashion that shots prevent infections, are largely safe, and change and save lives, naysayers have resisted vaccines for varying reasons for centuries.

In the early 2000s, vaccine resistance and denialism won an ardent convert in the scion of a legendary American political family who now heads the world’s best-resourced and arguably most influential health and medical organization — the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that he will focus the efforts of tens of thousands of health and medical experts he leads on key priorities, including reducing the harms of chronic conditions and what he calls environmental “toxins.”

He has put huge weight and time into dealing with autism, as well as, critics say, undercutting decades of efforts to safeguard Americans’ health with vaccines.

Magazine article retracted

RFK Jr.’s public pronouncements about vaccines and autism date to 2005, the New Yorker magazine has reported. Kennedy long has been an environmental activist. He has said he knew about mercury as a water pollutant, for example, as a byproduct of coal mining that poisoned rivers. He has said that he thinks he may have suffered mercury poisoning from eating too many tuna fish sandwiches (!). He wrote an error-riddled article about thimerosal, a mercury-containing organic compound and drug for Rolling Stone, a rock’n’roll magazine, and Slate, an online news and opinion site. He asserted that the tiny amounts of thimerosal in vaccines caused neurological disorders, specifically autism.

This theory, which has been debunked by multiple rigorous studies, caused a furor. Slate and Rolling Stone both pulled the Kennedy article. Its core accusations have been further slammed by researchers who note that thimerosal was eliminated from vaccines in many nations — without any measurable reduction in autism incidence.

The uproar about RFK Jr.’s misinformation, of course, was just a sample of the bunk spread about vaccines and autism, notably including the British scandal involving a now-defrocked doctor, Andrew Wakefield. The Lancet, a respected medical journal, has spent decades trying to clean up the huge mess created when its editorial processes failed, allowing the publication of a Wakefield article, based on 12 patients, asserting that ties existed between measles vaccines and autism. That 1998 article has since been retracted and found to be a medical fraud, and Wakefield lost his medical license.

Still, Kennedy has doubled down on his attacks on vaccines, especially with the false linkage to autism. He joined the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that assails vaccines and served as its leader and legal counsel. His work with the group, as well as the filing of lawsuits in which he is counsel or a participant, enriched RFK Jr. His nonprofit annual salary alone was $500,000 in 2023, the last year for which public disclosures are available, the New Yorker has reported.

Infuriating zealousness

Whatever financial benefits he has reaped, RFK Jr. has become an aggressive campaigner against vaccines — and he refuses to take responsibility for the lethal consequences of his advocacy. That’s the view of experts like Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert. He has denounced Kennedy for his actions in 2019 in a fatal measles outbreak in Samoa.

The island was struggling when a ghastly mixup led to two youngsters’ deaths due, authorities found, to a bad vaccine. Vaccination rates in Samoa plunged, and Kennedy and others opposed to vaccines regarded the isolated spot as a natural lab to test their unsupported theories that vaccines cause more harm than good. They urged authorities to let vaccination among Samoans dwindle even further — a move Offit has denounced, NBC News reports:

“Kennedy’s impulse to stand back and let such a ‘natural experiment’ unfold put children at greater risk, Offit said, adding, ‘I can’t imagine anything less ethical or more cruel.’”

RFK Jr. spread vaccine misinformation to Samoan leaders and it swayed many — until calamity struck, as NBC News reported:

“A measles outbreak swept the country, sickening thousands and killing 83, mostly small children. As measles raged, Kennedy stayed connected to the island, writing to the prime minister to raise concerns about the vaccine and providing medical guidance to a local anti-vaccine activist who posted false claims about the vaccination campaign and promoted unproven alternative cures.”

U.S. Senators, including Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), assailed RFK. Jr. in his confirmation hearing (see photo above) about his role in Samoa and his vaccination opposition.

Since Kennedy has headed the federal health agency, a measles outbreak that was first detected in Texas has raged across multiple states, leading to the deaths of two children and illness among hundreds. The HHS secretary has downplayed the outbreak and waffled on whether officials should pursue a path that has quelled previous incidents: getting folks immunized.

RFK Jr. has said — grudgingly — that the vaccine works. But he has told parents to do their own research, without giving a federal endorsement of a proven preventative step to an illness that can have serious consequences for children. He also has repeatedly pushed the notion that supplements and improved nutrition would stem the disease’s rising tide. Experts say the current U.S. measles outbreak may take a year or more to put down. It imperils the nation’s status of having effectively eradicated the disease. It increases concerns about the loss of “herd immunity,” the broad immunity that protects big groups of people when many of its members are vaccinated.

Sowing anger, fear, and confusion

As awareness and knowledge about autism have increased significantly, the thinking and language about the condition and its role in modern life have evolved.

This makes sense, given the different ways in which autism affects individuals, including those who need lifetime support and those who say they find beneficial capacities from it.

But as diverse as the various public voices may be, the ascendance of RFK Jr. and his statements and actions on autism have spiked worry and fear. That he has riled up such strong reactions in so short a time — the administration has barely passed its first 100 days —shows how the HHS secretary and the administration pursue health policy with divisiveness, antagonism, and based on dubious grounds. Some specifics have agitated those concerned with autism:

§ Vaccine denier tapped for new study. In late March, the agency Kennedy heads prodded experts under its direction to reconsider the debunked notion that vaccines cause autism. David Geier, the individual tapped to lead the study, the Washington Post reported, has a long history of vaccine skepticism. He is not a medical doctor. He was disciplined by Maryland authorities for practicing medicine without a license. He does not hold degrees beyond a B.A. in biology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. His father, an M.D. who had his license suspended for putting autistic kids at risk, and he have published articles on autism and vaccines. At least one journal on science and engineering ethics found errors and ethical conflicts that led the publication to retract their study. Experts have assailed the hiring of Geier and the spending of taxpayer dollars to re-examine a claim that, the Washington Post noted, has been refuted in at least two dozen rigorous studies, including one that spanned 10 years and involved more than a half million subjects.

§ A sudden race to find ‘root causes.’ Kennedy, in May and in one of his major policy pronouncements, declared that the federal government would tell the American people by September the “root cause” of autism, and then would act swiftly on this information. Medical scientists and clinicians who have devoted decades to autism said they were pleased to see it taken seriously. But they also expressed huge doubt that the cause of a complex syndrome that researchers have zeroed in on for a century could be found in months. As the New York Times reported: “Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and expert on environmental toxins, pointed to the current mass layoffs and cutbacks for research at Mr. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services as one reason for doubting such quick progress. ‘Given that a great deal of research on autism and other pediatric diseases in hospitals and medical schools is currently coming to a halt because of federal funding cuts from HHS,’ he said, ‘it is very difficult for me to imagine what profound scientific breakthrough could be achieved between now and September.’” In recent days, RFK Jr. has backed away from his September timeline, saying major findings might be possible by then but that March looks like a more likely time for his promised result.

§ Assertions before study. The HHS secretary, with his lack of expertise in health, medicine, and science, has aggravated experts and advocates by refuting new data on autism’s prevalence. He also argued — before his own staff has barely launched their new efforts at his behest — that he knows the syndrome’s important causative factors. He said in a combative news conference that he does not accept the research on autism’s genetic roots, contending, instead, that a favorite of his — “environmental toxins” — are largely to blame. As the New York Times reported, he said, “Genes don’t cause epidemics. You need an environmental toxin.” The HHS secretary said the new federal campaign against autism would target many toxins. He could not provide specifics, aside from mentioning that some for investigation would include molds and food additives. He caused doctors and medical scientists to be further aghast by arguing that a toxin-caused autism would be an avoidable or preventable condition. Dr. Joshua Anbar, an assistant teaching professor at Arizona State University, told the New York Times this of the HHS secretary’s comments: “Autism is not an infectious disease. So there aren’t preventive measures that we can take.”

§ ‘Epidemic’ or heightened awareness? RFK Jr.’s long contention that autism constitutes an “epidemic” and demands attention stems not only from his linkage of it to vaccines. His persistent description, experts say, rests in his denial of society’s changing understanding of autism (as described above). Kennedy has long relied on one totally refuted study to claim that thimerosal and vaccines made 1989 a definable year in which autism cases started spiking and this is the start of an “epidemic.” He assails experts who, the New York Times reported, try to point out to him why diagnoses keep rising: “Autism rates among children have increased nearly fivefold since 2000, when the [CDC] first began collecting data on the condition’s incidence in children.The CDC’s new [April] report attributed some of the increase in autism’s prevalence to more screening for the condition. And researchers have pointed to several other factors, including greater awareness of what autism looks like, more access to services, more parents having children later in life and broader definitions of the disorder.” Part of RFK Jr.’s claims about autism incidence relies on one of the shakiest of all forms of “evidence” — personal experience and memory. He says he cannot recall meeting anyone when growing up with what he describes as autism.

§ Huge new data-banking planned. If public opinion polls are valid, a crucial reason why sentiment shifted to anger at Elon Musk’s chainsaw-wielding assault on the federal government occurred because his DOGE kids were pawing through highly personal and private data. It is no surprise, then, that RFK Jr. caused major upset when he sprung his news: A key part of the HHS autism initiative involves the creation of a giant federal databank, collecting and aggregating supposedly non-identifiable but highly sensitive information on the autistic from a number of different sources. An online petition sprung up almost immediately, with thousands protesting the proposal, calling it invasive, unwarranted government surveillance. Kennedy aides have downplayed the anxiety, saying much of the plan focuses on a “registry” of data on those with autism. But National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya also said his agency will create a “real world platform” with data from electronic health records, pharmacy chains, smart watches, fitness trackers, and health organizations, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Defense Health Agency, and Indian Health Service. The platform, he said, will have “access to labs, imaging, genomics, claims and billing data — which often provides detailed diagnostic information.” HHS insists that only a handful of researchers, chosen by RFK Jr., will have access to the autism databank and it will be secure. Really?

§ Stigmatizing statements. RFK Jr. insists that he is committed to helping the autistic, finding the cause of their condition, and working to deal with the syndrome. He’s doing his darnedest, though, to destroy advances made by individuals, families, experts, and advocates in awareness and acceptance, they say. They recoil from his denigrating, broad-brush remarks, such as in this widely publicized statement: “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. 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.” A USA Today columnist had this pungent reply to what he said were demeaning, stigmatizing views: “[A]s someone who has spent considerable time reporting on autism and having the honor to get to know brilliant and talented autistic children and adults and their families, let me say this to Secretary Kennedy: (Expletive) you … [Your] degrading, dehumanizing language is both preposterously inaccurate and wildly insulting. It’s the language of people who think children with disabilities have no value or are a drag on society.” The columnist also quoted an autistic British journalist who wrote of RFK Jr.’s views: “This is such a tired and outdated cliché that dates back to the old idea that autism is a tragedy. This narrative portrays autistic people as damaged goods. But even if they never created a single piece of art or simply existed, their life would not be a tragedy. There would still be joy. There would still be grace in their existence. Not because autistic people are naturally angelic, but because they are human beings with inherent value.”

GOP targets aid for the autistic — and many others

It isn’t a done deal, with the U.S. Senate still to consider the just-passed U.S. House “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill. It is a cornerstone of GOP plans for how the federal government will run under this administration.

Opponents keep blasting away at the legislation, notably because they argue it will cause immeasurable harm to Americans’ health. To sustain the Republican-embraced tax cuts for the wealthiest folks and mega-corporations, GOP lawmakers in the House hope to slash $700 billion from Medicaid.

That would be history’s biggest cut in what is the nation’s largest health insurer and a huge part of the country’s social safety net. Medicaid assists with the medical needs of almost 80 million elderly, poor, disabled, and mentally disabled people, including the autistic.

Congressional Republicans and top administration officials — including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — insist that they are improving Medicaid and slashing what they contend is its unnecessary support of able-bodied, working-age men and women. They hope to accomplish their goal with new work requirements for recipients.

Critics fire back that evidence has been lacking for repeated GOP claims about waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, which has been subjected to public and private financial scrutiny. Most of those on Medicaid who can work do so already, with most recipients debilitated or committed (for example, in caring for children or disabled family members) so they cannot hold jobs.

The labor that Medicaid recipients can do often is minimal or cash-based, making it burdensome for individuals to collect the documentation required in initiatives to test work requirements. Researchers studying state experiments with work requirements have found the programs create undue red-tape burdens on the vulnerable, without increasing employment. For example, they demand too-frequent paperwork submissions, notably filings online for people who can’t afford computers.

GOP-favored work requirements have another significant outcome: They reduce the numbers of those on federal assistance.

That could wreak major harm on the autistic, advocates say.

Christopher Banks, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America, said this in an interview about the proposed cuts: “We are deeply concerned that Medicaid will be targeted, putting critical services for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities at severe risk. Cuts of this magnitude could dismantle decades of progress in community-based care, leaving families without access to therapies, residential supports and essential health care.”

An autism care group in the Northeast has posted online this information about the GOP tax and spending plan: “For many families of children with autism, Medicaid is a lifeline, providing essential services such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), speech therapy, occupational therapy, and more. If the government cuts Medicaid funding, these families could face serious challenges in accessing the support their children need to thrive.” The group says Medicaid cuts could reduce or eliminate funding for therapy, cause longer waits for services, and increase financial burdens for families, as weak as slashing vital school programs for those with special needs.

Senators already have expressed concern about the House tax bill, vowing to tackle needed changes, notably to safeguard those on Medicaid. The president repeatedly had vowed that there would be no cuts to Medicaid and Medicare (which also provides some autism services, notably to adults). Voters will need to watch closely the details of the congressional and administration actions, not only the hefty Medicaid cuts but also whether legal requirements trigger an estimated slashing of $500 billion from Medicare.

A top health leader with a checkered past

I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.

— RFK Jr. to a House hearing

I’m somebody who is not a physician… and they [the American people] should also be skeptical about any medical advice. They need to do their own research.

— RFK Jr. in a CNN interview

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of the nation’s biggest health and medical agency, is one strange fellow.

His highly public and turbulent life and his willingness to espouse his views — which many argue make him a conspiracy theorist —have raised a mountain of questions in his short time at the federal Health and Human Services department.

Though he insisted in his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing that he does not oppose vaccines, a subject matter on which he has won much notoriety, he (or the agency he heads) already has:

§ Pushed the nation’s leading vaccine expert out of his agency

§ Hired a leading vaccination skeptic to conduct yet another study of an unfounded claim of a link between vaccines and autism (see above)

§ Ordered that vaccines undergo much more testing before approval for U.S. markets. He incorrectly has said that they have not undergone placebo testing — many have and many, experts say, should not. That’s because it would be unethical to withhold shots that have proven positive outcomes from test subjects, potentially harming them by allowing them to be infected with harmful illnesses.

§ Waffled about the measles vaccine in the face of one of the largest outbreaks in recent years, including by endorsing dubious nutrition and supplements over shots to deal with the highly infectious illness.

§ Unilaterally eliminated, without evidence, federal recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Seniors and those with serious, underlying health conditions are still advised to get the shot. But RFK Jr.’s decision will affect insurance coverage and decision-making for people who might have gotten a booster but now may not due to cost or the lack of encouragement to do so. People who work with seniors and those who are ill might not now choose to get the coronavirus jab. Grandparents may worry anew about kids visiting or living with them getting the infection and carrying it to them.

§ Canceled a $766-million contract for late-stage development of a “vaccine to protect people against flu viruses that could cause pandemics, including the bird flu virus that’s been spreading among dairy cows in the U.S., citing concerns about the safety of the mRNA technology being used,” NPR reported. The mRNA tech has been effectively, widely, and safely used, notably for Covid-19 shots. It produces vaccines faster than older means, such as cultivations involving chicken eggs. The ending of this program “puts the lives and health of the American people at risk,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown School of Public Health, who served as President Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator.

As he has grown testy in interviews and with congressional questioners, RFK Jr., 71, has opened the door himself to queries about his credentials for his top health and medical post.

As past news media profiles, including a long article in the New Yorker, have reported, RFK Jr. is not a doctor. He has zero educational or professional background in medicine or health. He is a lawyer who failed the Bar twice and practiced law only briefly before becoming an environmental and anti-vaccine advocate.

He has never held elective office, and besides holding corporate board seats — appointments on recommendation of friends of his legendary family —he has never run any enterprise approaching the tens of thousands of employees in HHS.

He barely was confirmed before he — or maybe it was DOGE and Elon Musk — slashed billions of dollars in research funding, cut tens of thousands of HHS staff and reorganized the department in ways that RFK Jr. still struggles to explain or defend.

He also is now saying his agency may bar its experts from publishing research and data in respected medical and scientific journals, which he assails as captives of Big Pharma.

He has a history of drug abuse, addiction, and spousal infidelity. Though he is a scion of one of the nation’s political dynasties, he has said the family’s enormous wealth bypassed him. He has proven opportunistic as a lawyer, with his famous name and willingness to be an outspoken advocate playing key roles in providing him with money.

His descriptions of parts of his life border on the bizarre. He has said he was diagnosed with a parasitic worm that ate part of and died in his brain. He claims that he suffered mercury poisoning by eating too many tuna sandwiches. He has spent his life as an outspoken advocate but also has explained that, in mid-career, he was struck by a neurological disorder. He suffers from spasmodic dysphonia and it makes his voice raspy and shaky — making him, as he has said, difficult to listen to.

He said he used a chainsaw to decapitate a beached dead whale, with his daughter recalling RFK Jr. strapping the carcass to the top of the family car and racing down the road for an odiferous trip home.

Kennedy also says he was traveling on back roads when he encountered a bear cub that was killed in an apparent accident. He stashed its carcass in his vehicle, deciding later that it would be amusing to create what became an urban mystery when he dumped the cub in Central Park and stashed a bicycle atop it.

Though his family is synonymous with pinnacle power in the Democractic Party and national politics, RFK Jr. sought the presidency as an independent. His family uniformly denounced him and his candidacy and refuted most of his views. Polls showed that he might have a spoiler role for Democrats and Republicans in the 2024 presidential race. The winner of that contest successfully persuaded him to endorse him with the promise that he could “go wild” on matters pertaining to food, pharmaceuticals, and health issues on which he has made unsupported claims.

Kennedy, among other things, has asserted that “environmental toxins” cause significant health harms, though he is less specific about what these substances are and how they are injurious. He has moved quickly at HHS to ban food dyes and additives. He has attacked seed oils (like those from corn and canola) as harmful, arguing that consumers instead should use beef tallow — a contention that sends cardiologists into palpitations.

Recent Health Care Developments of Interest

Here are some recent health, science, and medical news articles that might interest you

§ For older adults, a new acronym must be taken seriously: BE FAST. That’s a mnemonic to help patients recognize ministrokes, called TIAs for Transient Ischemic Attacks. This brain threat — which affects an estimated 250,000 patients annually and is increasing as the nation grays — too often gets ignored or dismissed, the New York Times reported. It’s unwise to do so, as a new study has found that TIAs put patients at risk of sharp cognitive declines. They don’t occur as fast as, say, happens with strokes. But the two both put patients over time on worrisome paths, especially because those who suffer from them often share other health issues like heart disease, obesity, and smoking. To recognize TIAs, whose symptoms often pass in minutes, heed the BE FAST warning, the newspaper says, to be wary of “Balance loss, Eyesight changes, FAcial drooping, arm weakness, and Speech problems. The T is for time, as in don’t waste any.” Urgent care is key to reducing TIAs’ harms, and specialists have “called for more comprehensive and aggressive testing and treatment, including imaging, risk assessment, anti-clotting and other drugs, and counseling about lifestyle changes that reduce stroke risk.”

§ As “private” Medicare plans keep up their explosive growth, which includes now enrolling more than half of folks eligible for senior health coverage, alarms are sounding about Advantage programs. The Kaiser Health News service has reported that “a blockbuster lawsuit filed May 1 by the federal Department of Justice alleges that insurers Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana paid ‘hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks’ to large insurance brokerages — eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The payments, made from 2016 to at least 2021, were incentives to steer patients into the insurer’s Medicare Advantage plans, the lawsuit alleges, while also discouraging enrollment of potentially more costly disabled beneficiaries. Policy experts say the lawsuit will add fuel to long-running concerns about whether Medicare enrollees are being encouraged to select the coverage that is best for them — or the one that makes the most money for the broker.”

§ A food poisoning outbreak involving E. coli bacteria and tainted lettuce killed one person and sickened nearly 90 others in 15 states last fall. But federal food safety experts in the new administration, armed in February with vital information about the source and extent of the incident, broke with past practice and made no public disclosure of this matter, according to a Washington Post news article. Critics have assailed the administration, the article reported: “From failing to publicize a major outbreak to scaling back safety alert specialists and rules, the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory and cost-cutting push risks unraveling a critical system that helps ensure the safety of the U.S. food supply, according to consumer advocates, researchers and former employees at the [federal Food and Drug Administration] and U.S. Department of Agriculture … Public health advocates warn companies and growers will face less regulatory oversight and fewer consequences for selling tainted food products as a result of recent FDA actions. The administration is disbanding a Justice Department unit that pursues civil and criminal actions against companies that sell contaminated food and is reassigning its attorneys. Some work will be assumed by other divisions … Federal regulators also want states to conduct more inspections, according to two former FDA officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. But some Democratic lawmakers say states lack the resources to take over most food safety inspections.”

§ Traumatic brain injuries kill thousands annually and millions struggle to recover from them. But doctors still rely on archaic, simplistic, and overly broad ways in describing this harm and deciding important treatments that will follow, the New York Times has reported. Almost 100 experts in the field have published in a prominent medical journal a plan to overhaul brain injury assessments, which now rely on the Glasgow Coma Scale. The newspaper said the “test assesses a person’s ability to respond to commands, whether their pupils react to light and other factors. Patients’ injuries are categorized as mild, moderate, or severe.” Dr. Michael McCrea, a professor of neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and an advocate of a changed system, said the current one sounds “like a cartoon.” Why are 21st century clinicians evaluating patients, for example, by asking them, “How many fingers am I holding up? What city are we in? We know we can do much better … It’s really just embarrassing.” He noted the assessment matters because “What you call someone dictates their care.” The new, proposed standards “start with the Glasgow scale, but add other signs, like whether patients have post-traumatic amnesia or headaches or are sensitive to light or noise … the new system also looks for blood biomarkers of brain injury and includes scans, including CT and MRI’s to look for blood clots, skull fractures and hemorrhaging.”

HERE’S TO A HEALTHY 2025 — AND BEYOND!

Sincerely,

Patrick Malone
Patrick Malone & Associates