“Autism destroys families,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) said during a press conference discussing the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) latest report on the rising number of children being diagnosed with autism. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), later added in a presentation to the NIH Council of Councils his plans to create “national disease registries, including a new one for autism,” allegedly wanting to use private data such as smartwatches and fitness trackers. The backlash was swift. Christopher Banks, CEO of the Autism Society of America, told NewsNation, “Autistic individuals and their families are left feeling dehumanized, devalued, and blamed.”

With RFK Jr., the current head of the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), believing that autism is an epidemic caused by “environmental toxins,” countless people with autism are worried for their safety. People are becoming concerned that they will be listed in a national registry, therefore discouraging them from getting resources. Anne Borden, co-founder of Autistics for Autistics, supports this, stating “ … that kind of misinformation can stop people from getting the kind of help that they really need, such as the diagnosis that can unlock funding for speech pathology.” A HHS  official would later go back on Bhattacharya’s idea of an autism registry, stating that they are not making one, but the damage is done.

In 1998, a study was published in The Lancet, a medical journal, alleging a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. This was a study primarily written by disgraced former doctor Andrew Jeremy Wakefield, with help from his colleague, Herman Hugh Fudenberg, a man who had his medical license revoked and went on record saying he believed he could “cure” autism with his bone marrow. The science turned out to be extremely biased and unethical, and the entire paper was eventually retracted. The Lancet still has this study on their website, except with the word “RETRACTED” in big, red letters across every page. This one study is credited with being the main cause of the vaccine scare in the mid-2000s in the United Kingdom, and now to the modern-day hysteria in the United States.

During this time, journalist Brian Deer investigated Wakefield and his study. In his documentary “MMR: What They Didn’t Tell You,” he reveals the lies, motives and the abuse Wakefield performed for his study in an attempt to get funding. Deer continued his investigation even when Wakefield attempted to sue him. Wakefield originally would say that the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was dangerous, so that he could push his own vaccine and get money. Now disgraced in the U.K., Wakefield continues to travel the U.S., and Texas specifically, to spread a new anti-vax movement, claiming all vaccines are bad, despite knowing it goes against his original plan. Despite there having been no further evidence to support this claim that vaccines cause autism, it’s clear with RFK Jr.’s most recent rhetoric that this false theory is nowhere near dead and gone.

Through its Accessibility Services Department, Dallas College has countless services that serve to assist students with all kinds of disabilities, including autism. Harmful rhetoric such as RFK Jr.’s and Bhattacharya’s should not discourage fellow students from getting the help they need, like any other student. Instead of putting millions of dollars toward finding the cause of autism and treating autism like it’s an ‘epidemic,’ effectively putting people with autism in more isolation, we should put that money toward more resources for autistic people in a world that is already not made for them. As Anne Bordon stated, “We have to build a society that values autistic people, including those that Kennedy says don’t do their own taxes.”