By Allison Carcella, Social Media Manager
Autism Acceptance Month has been celebrated for years during April. Originally called Autism Awareness Month, the name has been colloquially changed in recent years to showcase support for autistic individuals as individuals. Autism Acceptance Month is celebrated on our own campus with an informational event that was held on the last day of the month. The cultural attitudes around autism have shifted substantially from when the month was first celebrated, but this acceptance of autistic people and the neurodivergent community as a whole have been threatened by recent actions taken by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Seal of the Department of Health and Human Services. Image sourced under Creative Commons License.
Recently, Kennedy has received criticism for his statements regarding autistic people by calling autism a “preventable disease” and citing the claim that vaccines or an environmental toxin causes autism. The vaccine claim, which was first proposed during a study in 1998, has been proven false time and time again, but it keeps popping up in conversations due to the rhetoric Kennedy and others are spreading. Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, stated, “A robust body of research proves there is no link between vaccines and autism,” which Gross, according to a PBS article, believes was the “environmental toxin” Kennedy speculated about.
Scrutiny of current public health leaders is high. Recently, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the National Institute of Health director, had to clarify his announcement of an “autism registry.” A Department of Health and Human Services official relayed to CBS News that there is no autism registry, but stated, “The real-world data platform will link existing datasets to support research into causes of autism and insights into improved treatment strategies However, shockwaves hit when the possibility that the HHS Department could collect information such as pharmaceutical records, genome information, and data from fitness trackers and smartwatches.
The policies proposed by Kennedy and the Department of Health and Human Services regress the progress we’ve made in the support of autistic people. Having different support needs than other people does not make disabled people any less deserving of respect and dignity. As we reflect on this past Autism Acceptance Month, keep these ideas in mind for the rest of the year.
Sources:
RFK Jr.’s autism study to amass medical records of many Americans – CBS News
