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RFK Jr. Says There Are No Autistic Poets. We Asked an Autistic Poet.
RFK Jr. Says There Are No Autistic Poets. We Asked an Autistic Poet.
“I will challenge RFK Jr. to write a poem as good as me any day of the week.”
Politics, 9 hours ago
Julia Métraux
Reporter
To Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—and contrary to medical consensus and decades of study—autism is an appalling, family-destroying “disease.” To pediatric psychiatrists and autism experts like Vanderbilt University’s Zachary Warren, speaking Wednesday to National Public Radio, autism “isn’t a single thing; it is a word we use in an attempt to capture a spectrum of behavioral strengths, differences, and vulnerabilities.”
During a startling recent press conference, and following a pledge to establish the “cause” of autism by September, the HHS secretary sparked further outrage—by, as my colleague Anna Merlan reported yesterday, saying the following:
“These are kids who will never pay taxes,” Kennedy declared. “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. We have to recognize we are doing this to our children.”
Kennedy’s years of anti-vaccine activism have centered in large part on autism, framing it as a “preventable disease” and epidemic driven by environmental contaminants. A lawyer by training, with no medical background beyond freelance taxidermy, Kennedy has consistently peddled misinformation about autism and autistic people, presenting the condition as a vaccine-driven scourge.
Snip...more...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/rfk-kennedy-hhs-autism-diagnoses-poet/
“I will challenge RFK Jr. to write a poem as good as me any day of the week.”
Politics, 9 hours ago
Julia Métraux
Reporter
To Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—and contrary to medical consensus and decades of study—autism is an appalling, family-destroying “disease.” To pediatric psychiatrists and autism experts like Vanderbilt University’s Zachary Warren, speaking Wednesday to National Public Radio, autism “isn’t a single thing; it is a word we use in an attempt to capture a spectrum of behavioral strengths, differences, and vulnerabilities.”
During a startling recent press conference, and following a pledge to establish the “cause” of autism by September, the HHS secretary sparked further outrage—by, as my colleague Anna Merlan reported yesterday, saying the following:
“These are kids who will never pay taxes,” Kennedy declared. “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. We have to recognize we are doing this to our children.”
Kennedy’s years of anti-vaccine activism have centered in large part on autism, framing it as a “preventable disease” and epidemic driven by environmental contaminants. A lawyer by training, with no medical background beyond freelance taxidermy, Kennedy has consistently peddled misinformation about autism and autistic people, presenting the condition as a vaccine-driven scourge.
Snip...more...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/rfk-kennedy-hhs-autism-diagnoses-poet/
❤️pants
RESIST!!
11 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
HE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEM 
My 32 year old son has high spectrum autism.
Has a job.
Pay taxes.
Close to his Associate Degree.
More sociable than I am.
Uses the bathroom unassisted.
This incompetent so called HHS Secretary should just STFU.
