Science
Jeremiah Ostriker, Who Plumbed Dark Forces That Shape Universe, Dies at 86
Jeremiah Ostriker, an astrophysicist who helped set off a revolution in humankind’s view of the universe, revealing it to be a vaster, darker realm than the one we can see, ruled by invisible forms of matter and energy we still don’t understand, died on Sunday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 87.
His daughter Rebecca Ostriker said the cause was end-stage renal disease.
Over more than four decades, mostly at Princeton University, Dr. Ostriker’s work altered our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve as he explored the nature of pulsars, the role of black holes in the evolution of the cosmos and what the universe is made of.
Before the 1970s, most astronomers believed that galaxies were made up mostly of stars.
“Ostriker was arguably the most important single figure in convincing the astronomical community that this natural and seductive assumption is wrong,” David Spergel, the president of the Simons Foundation, which supports scientific research, wrote in 2022, nominating Dr. Ostriker, his mentor, for the Crafoord Prize, the astronomical equivalent of a Nobel. He cited Dr. Ostriker’s “eloquent advocacy for the then-radical new model in which the visible stars in galaxies were only a minor pollutant at the center of a much larger halo of dark matter of unknown composition.”
Dr. Ostriker’s work, he said, was “the grandest revision in our understanding of galaxies” in half a century.
Jerry Ostriker, as he was known to friends and colleagues, a man with a prickly sense of humor and a soft but commanding voice, was willing to go wherever the data and scientific calculations led him, and was not shy about questioning assumptions — or having fun. Prominently displayed in his home was a youthful photo of himself, taken in Cambridge, Mass., driving a motor scooter as his wife, Alicia Ostriker, seated behind him, lifts a bottle of wine to her lips. (A close look shows the cork still in the bottle.)
“He had the quickest wit of any scientist I have encountered,” said James Peebles, a Nobel physics laureate and a colleague of Dr. Ostriker’s at Princeton. “And I don’t remember ever matching him in a spontaneous debate” on any issue.
Asked in a 1988 oral history interview for the American Institute of Physics if he had favored any of the models of the universe being batted about in the 1970s, when he entered the field — whether the universe was finite or infinite, whether it had a beginning or was somehow always here, whether it would expand forever or crash back down in a big crunch — he said he had not.
“Scientists have followed their own biases, and my principle bias at the time was being contemptuous and intolerant of all of these people who had specific models,” he answered. “How could they be so certain when the evidence was as confusing and inconclusive?”
A ‘Classic Nerd Child’
Jeremiah Paul Ostriker was born on April 13, 1937, on the Upper West Side, the second of four siblings. His father, Martin Ostriker, ran a clothing company, and his mother, Jeanne (Sumpf) Ostriker, was a public-school teacher. Babe Ruth lived around the corner, and the children used to chase his car for autographs.
“I must have been the classic nerd child,” Dr. Ostriker wrote in a memoir published in the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2016. He first became interested in science when he was 4: His mother started reading science books aloud to get him to sit still for an oil portrait, and the readings stuck.
After graduating from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx, Jerry Ostriker went to Harvard University, where he planned to study chemistry. Instead, he switched to physics, which appealed to what he called his “cosmic perspective.”
“I probably spent more time on literature than I spent on science,” he said in the oral history interview.
He soon began commuting to Brandeis University to visit Alicia Suskin, a former Fieldston classmate who was an aspiring artist and poet. They were married in 1958, while they were still undergraduates.
Ms. Ostriker, a professor emerita of English at Rutgers University, became an award-winning poet and has often written her husband into her work. In turn, he found poetry in astrophysics. “As an astrophysicist, you get a perspective on humankind,” he said, describing it as “sweating on this little grain of spinning sand.”
In addition to his wife and his daughter Rebecca, an editor for the opinion section of The Boston Globe, Dr. Ostriker is survived by two other children, Eve Ostriker, an astrophysicist at Princeton, and Gabriel Ostriker, a data engineer; a sister, Naomi Seligman; two brothers, Jon and David; and three grandchildren.
After graduating from Harvard in 1959, Dr. Ostriker worked at the United States Naval Research Laboratory for a year before enrolling in graduate school at the University of Chicago, splitting his time between the university’s Yerkes Observatory and the physics department, where he worked under the future Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
He earned his Ph.D. in 1964. After a postdoctoral year at the University of Cambridge in England, where he rubbed elbows with future black hole eminences like Stephen Hawking and Martin Rees, Dr. Ostriker joined Princeton as a research scientist. He remained there for 47 years, rising through the ranks to become chairman of the astronomy department and provost of the university.
The Dark Side of the Universe
At Princeton, Dr. Ostriker wrote a series of papers that would lead astronomy to the dark side.
He wondered whether galaxies, like stars, could break apart if they rotated too fast. The question was particularly relevant to so-called disc galaxies like the Milky Way, which are shaped sort of like a fried egg, with a fat, yolky center surrounded by a thin, white flat of stars.
Working with Dr. Peebles, he constructed a computer simulation and found that disc galaxies were indeed unstable. They would fall apart unless there was something we couldn’t see, a halo of some additional invisible mass, lending gravitational support.
Whatever this stuff called dark matter was — dim stars, black holes, rocks, exotic subatomic particles left over from the Big Bang — there could be a lot of it, as much as 10 times the mass of ordinary atomic matter.
It was one of the first theoretical arguments that there must be more to galaxies than could be seen in starlight. In the 1930s, the astronomer Fritz Zwicky had suggested that most of the mass in galaxies was “dark.” His idea was largely ignored until Dr. Ostriker and Dr. Peebles published their paper in 1973.
The reaction from the scientific community was predominantly hostile, Dr. Ostriker said. “I couldn’t see particularly why,” he said in the oral history. “It was just a fact.”
A year later, incorporating more data from galaxy clusters and other star systems, he and his colleagues argued that, in fact, most of the mass in the universe was invisible.
By the early 1980s, the idea of dark matter had become an accepted part of cosmology, but there remained conundrums, including calculations that suggested that stars were older than the universe in which they lived.
The missing ingredient, Dr. Ostriker and the theoretical physicist Paul Steinhardt, then at the University of Pennsylvania, suggested in 1995, was a fudge factor known as the cosmological constant. Einstein had come up with this concept in 1917, but had later abandoned it, considering it a blunder.
As Dr. Steinhardt recalled, he and Dr. Ostriker were “convinced that a universe with only dark and ordinary matter could not explain the existing observations.” But once they added the cosmological constant, everything came out right.
They were not the only ones with this idea. The cosmologists Michael Turner, now retired from the University of Chicago, and Lawrence Krauss, now retired from Arizona State University, also argued in favor of bringing back the constant. “To say Jerry was a giant in the field is an understatement,” Dr. Turner wrote in an email, adding, “Sparring with Jerry over science was a privilege and often a learning experience.”
Three years later, two competing teams of astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe was being accelerated by a “dark energy” acting as the cosmological constant, pushing galaxies apart. The cosmological constant then became part of a standard model of the universe, as Dr. Ostriker and others had predicted.
In another series of papers, he and various collaborators transformed astronomers’ view of what was going on in the space between stars.
Dr. Ostriker and Renyue Cen, also of Princeton, concluded in 1999 that most ordinary atomic matter in the nearby universe was invisible, taking the form of intergalactic gas heated to millions of degrees by shock waves and explosions.
A Passion That Never Waned
At Princeton, Dr. Ostriker helped set up the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a collaboration — initially of Princeton, the University of Chicago and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. — aimed at remapping the entire sky in digital form with a dedicated telescope at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, N.M.
“The survey is going to increase our knowledge and our understanding of the universe a hundredfold,” he told The New York Times in 1991. “The map is not going to show us how the universe began, but it will show us the nature and origin of large-scale structure, the most interesting problem in astrophysics today. With an answer to this problem, we will be able to better approach the question of how it all began.”
The survey, started in 1998, is now in its fifth iteration and has generated some 10,000 research papers and archived measurements of a half-billion stars and galaxies, all free to any astronomer in the world.
As provost, Dr. Ostriker led the effort to vastly expand the university’s financial aid program, changing many loans to grants that would not need to be repaid, making a Princeton education more egalitarian. In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Bill Clinton.
Dr. Ostriker retired from Princeton in 2012, just as his daughter Eve was joining the astronomy faculty there. He took a part-time position at Columbia University, returning to his childhood neighborhood.
“Growing up in New York City, I couldn’t see the stars,” he once told The Times. He found them anyway, and a whole lot more that we can’t see with or without the glare of streetlights.
It was a passion that never waned. Encountered recently by a reporter on the sidewalk in front of Columbia, Dr. Ostriker launched into an enthusiastic description of a promising new theory of dark matter.
Early in 2023, by then ailing, he took to his bed at home. But he kept up with his research by email and had regular pizza lunches with colleagues.
Apprised recently of results from the James Webb Space Telescope that seemed to reinforce his ideas about dark matter, he wrote in an email to his colleagues, “Keep up the good work.”
The dark universe he helped conjure half a century ago has developed a few small cracks, leading to new ideas about the nature of that dark matter.
“It’s a very, very, very specific and clear theory. So therefore, God bless it, it can be wrong,” Dr. Ostriker said in a recent interview. “That’s the way science proceeds. And what we know about it is that it is a little bit wrong, not a lot wrong.”
Dr. Rees, a cosmologist at the University of Cambridge and the Astronomer Royal, summed up Dr. Ostriker’s life this way: “Some scientists come up with pioneering ideas on novel themes; others write definitive ‘last words’ on already-established topics. Jerry was in the first category.”
“He wrote among the earliest papers — now classics — on the nature of pulsars, the evidence for dark matter and on galaxy formation and cosmology. His flow of papers continued into his 80s,” Dr. Rees added. “He enthusiastically engaged in new data and in computational techniques. He inspired younger colleagues and collaborators, not just at Princeton but around the world.”
Community colleges play a critical role in addressing California’s persistent demand for healthcare workers, preparing students to become the state’s next generation of nurses, medical assistants and physical therapy aides.
But in the Los Angeles Community College District, where more than half of all students report incomes near or below the poverty line, many people struggle to complete their degrees while also holding down jobs to pay rent, buy groceries and cover child-care costs.
A pilot program at the L.A. district — the state’s largest, with nine colleges and 194,000 students — aims to address these seemingly intractable challenges with a targeted remedy: $1,000 a month in guaranteed income.
Late last year, the district launched an initiative that provides cash payments for 12 months to 251 students with a demonstrated financial need who are pursuing health careers. The funding is unrestricted, so participants can use the money however they see fit.
The goal of the effort, dubbed Building Outstanding Opportunities for Students to Thrive, or BOOST, is to eliminate financial insecurity so that students can focus on achieving their academic goals and the college system can deliver a diverse, multilingual healthcare workforce to serve L.A. in the process.
The Times followed one student through the first months of the new initiative to learn how a guaranteed basic income might influence the lives and choices of L.A. community college students.
“I want to give him opportunities, and in order to do that, I have to get ahead,” Adriana Orea, a single mom, says of her decision to pursue a career as a registered nurse.
Adriana Orea, 32, has known for years that she wanted to pursue a career in nursing. She had worked for a time as a licensed vocational nurse, and found the experience rewarding. But after giving birth to a son two years ago, she set her sights on a higher-paying position as a registered nurse, which generally requires a bachelor’s degree from an accredited nursing program.
“I want to give him opportunities, and in order to do that, I have to get ahead,” said Orea, a single mother. “I don’t want him to feel like he’s missing out on something because I’m not able to provide it for him.”
She had recently returned to school, enrolling at L.A. City College in the prerequisite courses she’ll need to get accepted into a nursing school, when she was selected for BOOST. She received her first cash payment on Thanksgiving.
“I feel very blessed to have been picked,” she told The Times a few days later. “At the same time, I feel like I want to be very responsible with this, because it’s not something to be taken lightly.”
Orea lives with her parents and her curly-haired 2-year-old, Kevin, in a rent-controlled building near MacArthur Park. In early December, she was taking three classes and working eight hours a week at the front desk of the college counseling department — a position she got through the state’s welfare-to-work program.
Adriana Orea says her parents, both Mexican immigrants who work night shifts as janitors, are crucial partners in helping raise her son, Kevin.
She is quick to express gratitude for her parents, who are crucial partners in helping raise her son. Her parents, both Mexican immigrants who work night shifts as janitors, watch Kevin while Orea is on campus. She covers most of the family’s food expenses with her CalFresh benefits, spending between $500 and $600 a month on groceries, and also pitches in for rent.
“It’s just been living on a budget, which is definitely doable, because I have so much support,” she said.
Of the first $1,000 payment, she spent about $600 on outstanding bills for Kevin’s newborn check-ups that had resulted from a lapse in health insurance. She also used some of the money to buy Christmas gifts for her family and a holiday outfit for herself. She received the second payment in mid-December, and was determined to not dip into it.
“I’m just treating it like I’m not receiving it,” she said.
By January, she already felt more financially secure, having squirreled away $1,000 and knowing more would be coming.
“I might actually have something in the back pocket,” she said. “It’s not just a paycheck-to-paycheck thing.”
Adriana Orea says the $1,000 a month she gets through BOOST has made a world of difference in her stress levels: “I can literally just concentrate on studying for my classes.”
More than 150 guaranteed income pilot programs have launched nationwide in recent years, but BOOST is one of the first focused on community college students.
Proponents tout unconditional cash as a way to provide greater stability to vulnerable community members. But as the concept has gained steam, it has also spurred backlash. Several Republican-led state legislatures are banning or trying to preempt cities and counties from launching direct cash initiatives, arguing publicly funded programs are a waste of taxpayer resources.
The BOOST program is privately funded with more than $3.1 million from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and $867,500 from the California Community Foundation’s Young Adults Forward Fund. It represents a rare philanthropic investment in California community college students, who number 2.1 million statewide. Typically, more than half of California high school graduates start at a community college.
There is a “massive mismatch of where private philanthropic dollars go and where students in California go to school, particularly if we think about low-income, first-generation and students of color,” said Kelly King, executive director of the Foundation for the Los Angeles Community Colleges. “This level of investment in community college students is very unusual, unfortunately, but it’s very much needed.”
To be eligible for BOOST, students must have selected a health-related major and express interest in pursuing a health career, as well as have a demonstrated financial need and be considered low-income for L.A. County. Participants in the pilot were selected by lottery, with 251 receiving the monthly payments and an additional 370 enrolled in a control group.
Of the total participants, 72% are female, 65% are Hispanic or Latino, and 29% report that the primary language in their household is Spanish, according to data provided by the community college district. The average annual household income is $31,853, and 47% report having children in the household.
Like other pilots, BOOST is designed as a research study. In this case, the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania is analyzing how the unrestricted payments effect the well-being of students and what role it might play in keeping them on track in completing their healthcare degrees.
“Lack of basic needs, food insecurity and unexpected financial shocks create barriers for students that often push them out of education,” said Amy Castro, the center’s co-founder and faculty director. “Dreaming about your future should be a feature of young adulthood that is open to all — not just the wealthy or those with the good fortune to have ironclad access to higher education.”
Among other benefits, Adriana Orea says the money she is saving through BOOST has allowed her to start an emergency fund in case she or her son falls ill and she can’t work.
By mid-February, the guaranteed payments had made a big difference in Orea’s life.
Determined to take advantage of the financial support, she enrolled in four classes for the spring semester. She felt as if her momentum was snowballing, and realized that with better time management, she could also take on a few more hours at work and make a bit more money.
Despite having more on her plate, Orea seemed less stressed. Knowing she didn’t need to hold down a full-time job, or a second part-time gig, to support her son was in itself a huge relief.
“I can literally just concentrate on studying for my classes,” she said.
She had started amassing an emergency fund in case she or Kevin gets sick and she’s unable to work.
She was also feeling more comfortable spending the money. She bought her family a Valentine’s Day lunch at Sizzler, treating her mom to the buffet and her dad to his favorite steak and shrimp dish. She took Kevin to Big Bear to see snow. And if she ran out of time to pack a lunch from home, she didn’t stress about grabbing a sandwich at a doughnut shop near campus.
“I see my bank account going up — I feel like I’m saving,” she said. So, she’s able to tell herself: “This is not a big splurge, I can treat myself.”
By early April, Orea had received $5,000 through BOOST.
She opened a high-yield savings account, with the goal of using her money to make money. She purchased Disneyland tickets to celebrate her mom’s 60th birthday. She had recently received two parking tickets, and while she said she was disappointed to lose money, it wasn’t the crisis hit to her budget that it would have been in the past.
She said receiving the cash — and knowing it was temporary — has made her “laser-focused” on her goals: Finish her prerequisite courses this spring; work part-time as a licensed vocational nurse this summer while studying for her nursing school entrance exam; then apply to schools in the fall and start a nursing program next spring.
“Having this opportunity made me take a hard look at myself and be like, ‘This is what you want. How are you going to get there? Take advantage that you have this,’” she said.
At the same time, her horizons have expanded. Receiving the guaranteed income had freed her from the suffocating sensation of constantly worrying about money.
“Once you feel like there’s one less thing stressing you out, you just feel this relief,” she said. “It clears your mind a little more and you just feel less stressed about everything else.”
Orea said she expects the money she has saved through BOOST will smooth her transition to nursing school. She hopes to receive financial aid to attend a nursing program at L.A. City College or a Cal State university, but said she would take out loans if needed to attend a more expensive private school. She plans to live at home and pick up a couple of shifts each week as a licensed vocational nurse while in school, but said her savings from this year should help ensure she isn’t stretched thin during the two-year program.
She will likely remain in L.A. County after nursing school, she said. She worked in geriatrics previously, but is interested in exploring work in a birthing or neonatal unit. No matter where she works, she will use her Spanish fluency to communicate with patients and their families.
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
Life at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is slow, dark and quiet. Strange creatures glitter and glow. Oxygen seeps mysteriously from lumpy, metallic rocks. There is little to disturb these deep-ocean denizens.
“There’s weird life down here,” said Bethany Orcutt, a geomicrobiologist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.
Research in the deep sea is incredibly difficult given the extreme conditions, and rare given the price tag.
On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to permit, for the first time, industrial mining of the seabed for minerals. Scientists have expressed deep reservations that mining could irreversibly harm these deep-sea ecosystems before their value and workings are fully understood.
What’s down there, anyway?
Seafloor mining could target three kinds of metal-rich deposits: nodules, crusts and mounds. But right now, it’s all about the nodules. Nodules are of particular value because they contain metals used in the making of electronics, sophisticated weaponry, electric-vehicle batteries and other technologies needed for human development. Nodules are also the easiest seafloor mineral deposit to collect.
Economically viable nodules take millions of years to form, sitting on the seafloor the whole time. A nodule is born when a resilient bit of matter, such as a shark tooth, winds up on the ocean floor. Minerals with iron, manganese and other metals slowly accumulate like a snowball. The largest are the size of a grapefruit.
Life accumulates on the nodules, too. Microbial organisms, invertebrates, corals and sponges all live on the nodules, and sea stars, crustaceans, worms and other life-forms scuttle around them.
About half of the known life in flat, vast expanses of seafloor called the abyssal plain live on these nodules, said Lisa Levin, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. But “we don’t know how widespread species are, or whether if you mine one area, there would be individuals that could recolonize another place,” she said. “That’s a big unknown.”
How do you mine the sea?
Two main approaches to nodule mining are being developed. One is basically a claw, scraping along the seabed and collecting nodules as it goes. Another is essentially an industrial vacuum for the sea.
In both, the nodules would be brought up to ships on the surface, miles above the ocean floor. Leftover water, rock and other debris would be dropped back into the ocean.
Both dredging and vacuuming would greatly disturb, if not destroy, the seafloor habitat itself. Removing the nodules also means removing what scientists think is the main habitat for organisms on the abyssal plain.
Mining activities would also introduce light and noise pollution not only to the seafloor, but also to the ocean surface where the ship would be.
Of central concern are the plumes of sediment that mining would create, both at the seafloor and at depths around 1,000 meters, which have “some of the clearest ocean waters,” said Jeffrey Drazen, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Sediment plumes, which could travel vast distances, could throw life off in unpredictable ways.
Sediment could choke fish and smother filter-feeders like shrimp and sponges. It could block what little light gets transmitted in the ocean, preventing lanternfish from finding mates and anglerfish from luring prey. And laden with discarded metals, there’s also a chance it could pollute the seafood that people eat.
“How likely is it that we would contaminate our food supply?” Dr. Drazen said. Before mining begins, “I really would like an answer to that question. And we don’t have one now.”
What do mining companies say?
Mining companies say that they are developing sustainable, environmentally friendly deep-sea mining approaches through research and engagement with the scientific community.
Their research has included basic studies of seafloor geology, biology and chemistry, documenting thousands of species and providing valuable deep-sea photos and video. Interest in seafloor mining has supported research that might have been challenging to fund otherwise, Dr. Drazen said.
Preliminary tests of recovery equipment have provided some insights into foreseeable effects of their practices like sediment plumes, although modeling can only go so far in predicting what would happen once mining reached a commercial scale.
Impossible Metals, a seafloor mining company based in California, is developing an underwater robot the size of a shipping container that uses artificial intelligence to hand pick nodules without larger organisms, an approach it claims minimizes sediment plumes and biological disturbance. The Metals Company, a Canadian deep-sea mining company, in 2022 successfully recovered roughly 3,000 tons of nodules from the seafloor, collecting data on the plume and other effects in the process.
The Metals Company in March announced that it would seek a permit for seafloor mining through NOAA, circumventing the International Seabed Authority, the United Nations-affiliated organization set up to regulate seafloor mining.
Gerard Barron, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview on Thursday that the executive order was “not a shortcut” past environmental reviews and that the company had “completed more than a decade of environmental research.”
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said the United States would abide by two American laws that govern deep-sea exploration and commercial activities in U.S. waters and beyond. “Both of these laws require comprehensive environmental impact assessments and compliance with strong environmental protection standards,” she said.
What are the long-term risks?
Many scientists remain skeptical that enough is known about seafloor mining’s environmental effects to move forward. They can only hypothesize about the long-term consequences.
Disrupting the bottom of the food chain could have ripple effects throughout the ocean environment. An extreme example, Dr. Drazen said, would be if sediment diluted the food supply of plankton. In that case they could starve, unable to scavenge enough organic matter from a cloud of sea dust.
Tiny plankton are a fundamental food source, directly or indirectly, for almost every creature in the ocean, up to and including whales.
Part of the challenge in understanding potential effects is that the pace of life is slow on the seafloor. Deep-sea fish can live hundreds of years. Corals can live thousands.
“It’s a different time scale of life,” Dr. Levin said. “That underpins some of the unknowns about responses to disturbances.” It’s hard for humans to do 500-year-long experiments to understand if or when ecosystems like these can bounce back or adapt.
And there are no guarantees of restoring destroyed habitats or mitigating damage on the seafloor. Unlike mining on land, “we don’t have those strategies for the deep sea,” Dr. Orcutt said. “There’s not currently scientific evidence that we can restore the ecosystem after we’ve damaged it.”
Some scientists question the need for seafloor mining at all, saying that mines on land could meet growing demand for metals.
Proponents of deep-sea mining have claimed that its environmental or carbon footprint would be smaller than traditional mining for those same minerals.
“There has been no actual recovery of minerals to date,” said Amy Gartman, an ocean researcher who leads the United States Geological Survey seabed minerals team, referring to commercial-scale mining. “We’re comparing theoretical versus actual, land-based mining practices. If and when someone actually breaks ground on one of these projects, we’ll get a better idea.”
Eric Lipton contributed reporting.
As the leader of a nonprofit that supports thousands of children and adults with developmental disabilities across Los Angeles County, I’ve seen firsthand the strength, resilience and dignity of families raising children with autism. So when I heard the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services claim last week that autism “destroys” children and families and is “catastrophic for our country,” I was deeply disturbed but sadly, not surprised.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s overwrought remarks, like many made in public discourse about autism, reduce complex human stories to simple tragedy. They paint individuals and families as broken. They perpetuate the outdated idea that an autism diagnosis is, starkly, an ending, not a beginning. And for families already facing daily challenges — navigating school systems, medical insurance, therapies, and work, life and caregiving balances — this kind of language is another blow.
What’s worse, it distracts from real, urgent issues facing these families right now — especially proposed cuts to Medicaid that could devastate the supports they rely on.
To be clear: The prevalence of autism is rising. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that 1 in 31 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism, up from 1 in 36 just a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean autism is a catastrophe. The CDC says the change reflects better awareness, improved diagnostic tools and more families — especially in underserved communities — gaining access to the evaluations and services their children need.
Here in California, the state Department of Developmental Services serves more than 400,000 adults and children with developmental disabilities, including autism. That’s a 40% increase over the past decade, but services that are available haven’t kept pace. From early intervention help and behavioral therapy to job support and independent living programs, families often face long wait lists and limited options, particularly in working-class and low-income communities.
Now, just as more families are seeking help, some federal lawmakers are calling for Medicaid budget cuts that could threaten services for millions of Americans with disabilities. More than 15 million people with disabilities rely on Medicaid nationwide, including more than 1.9 million here in California.
These are the threats we should be talking about. Not manufactured panic over vaccines. Not unfounded theories about the cause of autism. And certainly not careless words that make families feel ashamed for seeking support.
Kennedy is right about one thing: Families matter. But if we truly care about them, we must protect — not politicize — them. I’ve met single parents working two jobs who spend their nights filling out paperwork to get their child approved for therapy. I’ve seen siblings step up to care for brothers and sisters navigating their own adolescence. I’ve seen entire families become fierce advocates, building welcoming communities where their children can thrive.
What these families need is not blame, but investment. In services. In housing. In employment pathways. In research — yes — but also in dignity, and the right to a full, self-determined life.
The individuals my organization serves are not “destroyed.” They are learning, working, creating art, volunteering, making friends and building lives of purpose. The caregivers, educators and direct service providers who support them are not defeated — they are relentless. And their stories deserve to be told not as cautionary tales, but as testaments to possibility.
So instead of invoking fear, let’s focus on the future. Let’s commit to equitable access to services. Let’s ensure California leads the nation in supporting people with autism and developmental disabilities. And let’s reject rhetoric that stigmatizes difference and isolates those who live it.
Los Angeles is a city built on diversity, innovation, and heart. Our disability community is no different. It’s time we honor their contributions — not with pity or panic, but with partnership and progress.
Veronica A. Arteaga is president and CEO of the Exceptional Children Foundation, headquartered in Culver City.
A pirated iOS port of Blue Prince is climbing the App Store charts
Thousands march in Dublin against Ireland's mass migration policies as McGregor pursues presidential bid
US strikes kill hundreds of Houthi fighters, hit over 800 Red Sea targets: Central Command
‘I’m a pediatrician: I get these top 11 questions about measles’
Eagles' Jalen Hurts skipping Trump visit as teammate spends time with him at golf course
-
News1 week agoHarvard would be smart to follow Hillsdale’s playbook. Trump should avoid Biden’s. | Opinion
-
Business1 week agoPorto's Bakery moving forward in Downtown Disney, replacing Earl of Sandwich
-
Politics6 days agoVideo: Hegseth Attacks the Media Amid New Signal Controversy
-
Culture5 days agoNew Poetry Books That Lean Into Calm and Joy Amid Life’s Chaos
-
Politics1 week agoSupreme Court blocks new deportations of Venezuelans in Texas under 18th century Alien Enemies Act
-
News1 week agoMaps: Where Do Federal Employees Work in America?
-
Politics7 days agoPope Francis and US presidents: A look back at his legacy with the nation's leaders
-
World6 days agoNew Zealand’s minor gov’t party pushes to define women by biological sex