Health
Experts Doubt Kennedy’s Timetable for Finding the Cause of Autism
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, pledged on Thursday to seek out experts globally to discover the reasons for the increasing rates of autism in the United States.
“We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Mr. Kennedy announced at a cabinet meeting held by President Trump. “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
“There will be no bigger news conference than that,” Mr. Trump replied.
But scientists who have worked for decades to find a cause greeted Mr. Kennedy’s predicted timeline with skepticism.
They said that a single answer would be hard to identify in a field of possible contributors including pesticides, air pollution and maternal diabetes.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and expert on environmental toxins, pointed to the current mass layoffs and cutbacks for research at Mr. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services as one reason for doubting such quick progress.
“Given that a great deal of research on autism and other pediatric diseases in hospitals and medical schools is currently coming to a halt because of federal funding cuts from H.H.S.,” he said, “it is very difficult for me to imagine what profound scientific breakthrough could be achieved between now and September.”
Mr. Kennedy’s office did not offer many details on the plan. Later on Thursday, Mr. Kennedy revealed a few more clues, saying that the National Institutes of Health would lead the effort.
He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would soon release data showing that the autism diagnoses had now increased to one of every 31 children. Many scientists and doctors attributed the rise in autism rates over the last several decades in part to growing awareness of the disorder and to expanded diagnoses along a spectrum.
“We are launching requests to scientists from all over the country and all over the world,” Mr. Kennedy said in an interview on Fox News. “Everything is on the table: our food system, our water, our air, different ways of parenting, all the kind of changes that may have triggered this epidemic.”
In the interview, Mr. Kennedy also said an important part of the effort would be to compare autism rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. It’s an angle that many scientists dismiss, saying that parents who vaccinate their children are also more likely to get a diagnosis, given higher rates of interaction with health providers.
Many scientists who have observed Mr. Kennedy’s dogged opposition to many vaccines over two decades — and his frequent attempts to tie autism to vaccines — have dismissed his claims, citing the scientific consensus that debunked any such link. Scrutiny of his pledges to begin “gold standard” research only heightened in recent weeks when David Geier, a largely discredited researcher, was hired at H.H.S. to study any potential link between vaccines and autism.
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, director of environmental epidemiology of neurodevelopment at the University of California at Davis MIND Institute, said she had been seeking a cause for autism for 20 years.
It’s an exciting time for the field, she said, with multiple studies beginning to point to factors that could play a role. Among the possible links are pesticide exposure through food or nearby agricultural fields; workplace exposures to solvents; fevers or infections during pregnancy; maternal diabetes; and exposure to chemicals in plastics called phthalates or to PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” for their tendency to persist in the environment.
Some studies have found that the effect of environmental exposures can vary based on a person’s genes, “emphasizing the complexity of this syndrome.” Dr. Hertz-Picciotto said it was challenging to get funding for clinical studies that could shed light on a cause of autism, but new research could help advance the field. Those studies, though, could take years.
That all of the research could be sorted out by September, she said, was “ludicrous.”
Dr. Alice Kuo, the chief of pediatric medicine who cares for children and adults with autism at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she was involved in a yearslong project by the National Institutes of Health called the National Children’s Study. It followed thousands of children and parents and elicited information, including the possible causes of autism. The study was costly and ended far earlier than planned, Dr. Kuo said.
She said an effort to do something as rigorous would take months to plan and design — and years to arrive at an answer.
In a social media post on Thursday, Mr. Kennedy recognized the assistance of the president and the Make America Healthy Again Commission — a subgroup of the cabinet that includes Linda McMahon, the education secretary, and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Like Mr. Kennedy, they are not doctors or scientists.
“Thanks to your MAHA Commission, we’ll soon identify the root causes of the autism epidemic,” Mr. Kennedy wrote in a social media post.
Created by an executive order in February, the commission is charged with assessing in 100 days the threat to children of food ingredients, chemicals, medications and other exposures. Within 180 days, the commission is expected to submit a strategy to the president to address its findings.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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