Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doubling down after sparking outrage with his controversial comments on autism at his first official press conference as health secretary.
Appearing on Jesse Watters Primetime Tuesday night, Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, appeared surprised at the “tsunami of anger” directed his way, suggesting that critics were upset simply because he wants to find the cause of autism.
“There was a wave of anger against me because I announced that we’re going to find the cause of autism. This is something that President Trump told me on day one: I want to know what’s causing it within a year,” he told Watters.
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Kennedy drew widespread criticism last week by claiming that people with autism—a neurodevelopmental disorder—will never play baseball, go out on dates, pay taxes, write poems, or hold down a job. He also described autism as a “preventable disease” caused by a mysterious environmental toxin.
The health secretary, who’s long claimed a link between vaccines and autism, said he’s confident he’ll have answers on the cause of autism in a year.
The Health and Human Services Department’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conducting a study examining potential links between vaccines and autism—despite the theory having been thoroughly debunked by extensive scientific research.
“We are going to farm out grants to 15 groups, teams of the top scientists in the world. And we’re going to look at all of the possible culprits, and we’re going to do that within a year. We’ll have it. We’ll have answers. Within six months. We’ll have definitive answers within a year, and we’ll know, and then we’ll be able to eliminate the exposures.”
Kennedy said the backlash he received for his earlier remarks was “incomprehensible” to him.
“I mean, why would people not want to know what the cause of autism is? We know it’s an epidemic,” the health secretary added.
Kennedy had already tried to dial back the controversy in a sit-down last Thursday with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. He attempted to clarify that he wasn’t referring to all people with diagnosed with autism, but only to those who are “nonverbal”, unable to communicate with speech.
“Let me say this,” he told Hannity. “There are many kids with autism who are doing well. They’re holding down jobs, they’re getting pay checks, they’re living independently. But I was referring specifically to that 25 percent—the group that is nonverbal.”
He said he’d promised President Donald Trump in a Cabinet meeting on April 10 that he’d launched a massive testing and research effort that would pinpoint by September “what has caused the autism epidemic.”
Autism rates are on the rise among young kids in the United States, according to data from the CDC last week. The survey found autism prevalence in the U.S. increased from 1 in 36 children in 2020 to 1 in 31 in 2022. In 2018 the figure was 1 in 44.
The federal agency said this could be in part because of “increased access to identification among previously underserved groups.”
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences notes that “no link has been found between autism and vaccines, including those containing thimerosal, a mercury-based compound.”
