RFK Jr. is wasting your tax dollars
Remember when RFK Jr. promised to have an answer to the cause of autism by September 2025? He’s already walking that back:
“We will have some studies completed by September, and those studies will mainly be replication studies of studies that have already been done. We’re also deploying new teams of scientists, 15 groups of scientists. We’re going to send those grants out to bid within three weeks,” he told Collins.
“Kennedy added that he expects the results of those completed replication studies to begin to be finalized six months after September.”
If there are results by March, they won’t be based on new data, they will be using currently published data. Those data from studies going back decades demonstrate 50-80% heritability for autism. I know. I’m a geneticist and I’ve read those papers. You can too. Search on Pubmed, download and do your own research.
Autism has nothing to do with vaccines. Never did, never will.
I have reminded graduate students and several faculty that we don’t do research to “show,” we do research to test. What RFK Jr. wants to fund is research that will “show” an environmental cause of autism. Twin pair studies that have been published have tested the “nature vs nurture” question and come down squarely on the side of nature, i.e., genetics.
RFK Jr. moves the goalposts on autism
I have this theory about conspiracy theories: that there’s a conspiracy to put conspiracy theories out there so wack, so fringe, that it lumps all conspiracies together as wack or fringe, discounting those needing closer examination. The question is is who’s putting him up to it?
What I find so insidious is he takes things of valid concern, for example environmental factors ~ I have aired my concerns here about heavy metals ~ and turn it into something both campaign and cash cow. It’s like watching Greenies get elected as Democrats and turn into Republicans
I am genuinely concerned for my grandson …
Well 50% to 80% still leaves up to 50% as not heritable. Are there on-going studies of a population that has many of the genetic markers but do not develop ASD? A few years ago I attended an event where a speaker brought up that the identified genetic factors alone did not seem to “create” autism. There are markers that definitively correlated to statistically higher incidence, but that there were plenty of individuals with these markers without ASD. He said it could be more genetics not yet studied or other factors. We took along our youngest child as a baby, so pretty sure it was 2018.
@Eric,
Much of the remainder is due to spontaneous mutations in the germ line of one or the other parent. So genetic, but not heritable as conventionally measured. For example, >99% of cases of Rett syndrome, which is a syndromic cause of autism, are due to spontaneous mutations. Ditto for Fragile X syndrome, Angelman’s syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome.
The evidence for genetic factors is overwhelming, both in syndromic and non syndromic ASD. For a recent review of the scientific literature, see: Qiu A. Advancements in autism spectrum disorder research—from mechanisms to interventions. Curr Op Neurobiol 2025;93:103048.
“Are there on-going studies of a population that has many of the genetic markers but do not develop ASD?”
I don’t know but I’m sure the data exist. For kids with an ASD diagnosis and “genetic markers,” it would be simple to test both parents for the “markers” and ascertain whether that parent has ASD.
“He said it could be more genetics not yet studied or other factors.”
LOL! Yep, there are lots of variants in lots of genes for which the significance is unknown. That’s why I got my genome sequenced and paid for my variant call file. Science marches on!