Comment by Boogie_Man
1 day ago
If they come out with a list of twenty adjustments they're going to make based on the study (things like but not necessary including: banning certain fire retardents, attempt to reduce break/tire pollution, adjusting the timing of (but not eliminating) the vaccine schedule, banning specific food additives, reducing/modifying specific pesticide use) I will believe this is a legitimate and well intentioned effort from someone who is orientationally correct but frequently epistemologically incorrect. If it's just "eliminate all vaccines" then I'll be very disappointed.
The third reich response a lot of other commenters are having is interesting. I'm no expert and have not investigated autism, but if the messaging in response to RFK JR is "yeah he says 1 in 36 kids have autism now but actually that's fine and how it always has been and actually autism is good and he's actually Eichmann" you're going to drive a lot of people right to every unsubstantiated thing he says.
I think 1 in 36 kids having autism is similar to how breast cancer diagnosis shot up when we had better imaging ability or when we figured out prostate cancer was actually fairly common in older men but not usually something worth doing anything about. When we merged in aspergers and autism together that obviously makes autism rates higher and as research continues on diagnosing autism it makes sense rates increase from there too? I mean in the past we thought autism was only common in boys!
I sincerely hope this is the explanation and I will be frustrated if this information is not presented as a percentage of the increase as part of the report. If it fully explains the increase, even better.
I agree that I’m frustrated that this isn’t being coveted. Asperger’s being moved into autism was huge news at the time, so idk how RFK missed something so obvious and is pointing to quackery like vaccines. I don’t understand how we got to the point where cranks are trying to to prove their assumptions instead of real scientists.
This is a very valid point, but one RFK has mention he controls for in the past
It's pretty much impossible to control for, because you don't know what you don't know. Meaning, you can't estimate how many people haven't been diagnosed in the past because, well, they weren't being diagnosed.
Regardless of any so called good that could supposedly come of this..... Why does the federal government get to seize my medical records and data for this list without my consent??? Are autistic people not full citizens? What about rule of law??? If we can take such drastic measures and shit all over things like hippa and medical ethics....where is the sweeping federal database of obese people .
Some of those proposed adjustments are already in place in EU like the dyes. Regardless of possible autism link, it’s a good thing. But some are blinded by politics and can’t see that two things can be true. Trump Admin does bad things and good things
Why would a list of random "adjustments" lend legitimacy to their effort? If they told you that going barefoot and talking in Pig Latin would solve autism, would that give it legitimacy? Maybe soap is actually suppressing our natural bio-film so we should all forsake showering. I mean, someone could contrive a laughable explanation to justify that, and maybe make a graph that hygiene improvements worldwide correlated with the rise of ASD, so start stinkin' evenyone.
We know, with utter certainty, that the conclusion of this farce will be completely unproven lazy correlations that are so common in the scammer industry. Maybe it's seed oils, or HFCS, or the chemicals, etc. There is no outcome of RFK Jrs farce that won't be an absolute joke.
>The third reich response
Anyone who doesn't see incredible parallels with the rise of Hitler's heinous crimes is not paying attention. Oh look, they're going after the press and judges now, but don't worry until they're not suffixing the Hitler salutes with "my heart to yours" or something it surely can't be real. Further, the "they're going to make me believe this garbage person" argument is always laughable. No one buys it. People who like these creeps should just be honest about it and save the tired "you made me" bit that positively no one believes.
But sure, the only thing I can agree with you on is that the "autism is actually great" fringe is not helpful. Autism is not good, and most people with autism, even the ones who don't need around the clock care, would rather they didn't. ASD is likely basically a manifestation of evolution, and is biology playing random variations to test survivability, as it has done through human history. It gives us some super-intellectually focused individuals that contribute massively to humanity, but it also gives us a lot of very sad people who can't connect and sometimes need enormous levels of care.
Indeed, genetics are widely considered the prevalent "cause" of ASD. It's possible that autism really has become more common -- if it actually has and it isn't simply increased or more inclusive diagnoses -- because our information/engineering age has given people who carry ASD genetics more, errr, marketability on the reproduction market. Instead of being outcasts, what we used to call "Aspergers" sufferers, such as myself, suddenly make lots of money and get to be high status. But that's a lazy guess at most. But we do know that people on the ASD spectrum, including the most successful ones who found ways to make it work, are much more likely to have children on the spectrum, no outside environmental cause being necessary.