On Sept. 22, the Trump administration announced that, through “gold-standard science,” autism could be traced back to taking acetaminophen—commonly sold as Tylenol—during pregnancy.
Let’s get this part out of the way: While autism rates have risen in recent years, experts widely attribute this to an uptick in screening and diagnosis instead of a nationwide “epidemic.” And as for Trump’s warning against Tylenol, Dr. Jeffrey Ecker, Chair Emeritus of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, told The Beacon:
“I think it is poorly considered advice that does not represent the evidence that is available.”
Following the animation of this acetaminophen-coated monster, I set about researching evidence grounded in sturdier science, hoping to interview the MIT geniuses studying links between autism—also known as autism spectrum disorder, or ASD—and genetic disposition.
None of said MIT geniuses responded to me, presumably due to prior commitments doing genius stuff, so I decided on alternative measures:
I would like to tell you a little story.
On a sunny morning in fourth grade, my mom pulled me out of Mr. Joy’s technology class to take an IQ test, and I thought I was the smartest person in the entire universe. I soon came to find out that the test wasn’t just an IQ test, and that I had instead been diagnosed with something I didn’t understand.
That was the first time I ever heard the phrase “high-functioning autism,” sometimes used to describe cases on the “mild” end of the spectrum. For me, this included obsessive fascinations with pop culture and music, heightened emotions, mind-numbing perfectionism, and increased anxiety.
Looking back on the night I pieced everything together, I have distinct memories of flailing—of crying into a bowl of ice cream and waking up with the sensation that my future had been predetermined. I was hideously undereducated on the subject, strapped to the idea that “autism” was the “autism” of the elementary school playground—the vague insult lobbed at unsuspecting onlookers swinging on monkey bars—and that I’d better hide my having it from everybody. I guess Robert F. Kennedy Jr. frequented those same playgrounds.
Back in April, over five months before he spoke out against Tylenol, Kennedy stood on stage at a separate news conference and told our nation in grave, generalized tones, that autism “destroys families.”
“And these are kids who will never pay taxes,” Kennedy said. “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.”
For those without the necessary education, this is what the autism spectrum manifests itself as. Not as a neurodivergent “spectrum” of those with wide-ranging social, communicative, and behavioral characteristics, but as a black-and-white series of “nevers” devoid of finesse and ripe for gawking.
“Many people with autism do hold jobs, play sports, write creatively, build friendships, and live independently, while others do require more intensive support,” said Lyn Snow, Director of Student Services for Littleton Public Schools, in an interview with The Beacon. “I feel like my responsibility as an educator isn’t to set limits, but it’s to provide opportunities for individuals so that every student can achieve to their fullest potential, whatever that may be.”
When the Trump administration peddles autism as an avoidable “crisis,” their rhetoric harms both the public and the neurodivergent community’s understanding of what the spectrum actually is. This isn’t helped by the White House’s fervent search for questionable treatments, which eerily harkens back to a time—defined by the “refrigerator mother” theory linking autism to emotionally-distant parenting and Dr. Hans Asperger’s ties to Nazi-backed eugenics—when behavioral differences were vilified as mental abnormalities.
Even today, though the link between vaccines and the onset of autism during childhood has been repeatedly debunked, Kennedy and vaccine injury lawyer Drew Downing continue to push for financial compensation for families affected by the “‘A-word.’”
“Part of what Secretary Kennedy is doing right now—and with my help, and we have a team looking at it—is we have to figure out a way to capture these kids,” said Downing in a discussion with the MAHA Institute.
There is no word more telling in this entire mess than that word right there—Downey’s “C word.” To “capture” something is to label it wild or unstable, and labelling it that way animalizes and isolates it. Our president and his top medical officials might face the public with sympathy in their eyes, and they might try to convince us that, in prescribing leucovorin, a drug seeking to improve speech in minimally verbal autism, they want the best for American families and their children.
In reality, these powerful figures are the same kids who I once heard shouting insults from the top of the slide, and who—whether they know it or not—scare human beings into feeling inhuman.
Snow put it best: “I think students with autism, like all students, are paying attention to how society describes them.”
Given that it’s the nature of the loud and ill-informed is to be loud and ill-informed, I have no doubt this administration will continue its swingset campaign against autism. Because proper medical language was nonexistent for so long—the idea of an autism spectrum wasn’t given serious weight until 1994—we still have a long way to go before shedding the propagation of autism misinformation, let alone the stigma of autism diagnosis as a negative.
However, as Snow imparts, a solution can be jumpstarted by ensuring children understand their “essential” place in communities. If we reallocate energy toward supporting and welcoming those we spend so much time trying desperately to fix, maybe the next breakthrough won’t come from a governmental press conference, but from a child realizing that they have “autism,” and knowing the word is a lot larger than the two-dimensional fear stoking they’re accustomed to hearing.
To test my own idealism, I went for a walk with someone recently, and I told them about this small part of myself—the part I didn’t know about until the friendly child psychiatrist did her testing. It felt odd, it felt liberating, and finally, after ten years, it felt like the right thing to do.
