4 ms·

RFK Jr is a crank, misinformation peddler, and conspiracy theorist as well-documented and referenced on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kenne

by n4r9 2y ago

RFK Jr is a crank, misinformation peddler, and conspiracy theorist as well-documented and referenced on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr . So this needs a big pinch of salt. Especially as the "vaccines cause autism" crowd is a base of his. > "One of the things that I think we need to move away from today is this ideology that the autism prevalence increases — the relentless increases — are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition or changing diagnostic criteria,” If I remember rightly, doesn't this explain the effect at least partly? The question is how much of an effect is there after this is taken into account. I'm guessing we don't have a solid answer to that - if RFK's funding leads to one then that's a silver lining I guess. Nevertheless, is it a leap to go from there to environmental effects like vaccines and toxins? What if it's the amount of screen time, social media, or changes to education that are causing autism? > Kennedy also claimed most autism cases are severe before citing a statistic from the report that said 25 percent of children with autism are nonverbal. As the article notes, it's a sleight of hand to conflate "nonverbal" with severe. Presumably there are nonverbal people without autism. Moreover, does the cited study account for selection bias in autism severity?

taurath 2y ago
In my lifetime a high functioning person with autism has gone from Asperger’s to PDD-NOS to ASD to Level 1 (some support needed) ASD. The levels are quite new. It used to be that only those with the most disability would be diagnosed. Now there’s a much larger amount who are on the spectrum - it’s insanely prevalent and has been, generationally. I know tons of autistic ppl whose parents are autistic and not diagnosed - their kids know because they’re diagnosed, and the “quirks” of the family are often just autistic traits.

by n4r9 2y ago

taurath 2y ago

In my lifetime a high functioning person with autism has gone from Asperger’s to PDD-NOS to ASD to Level 1 (some support needed) ASD. The levels are quite new. It used to be that only those with the most disability would be diagnosed. Now there’s a much larger amount who are on the spectrum - it’s insanely prevalent and has been, generationally. I know tons of autistic ppl whose parents are autistic and not diagnosed - their kids know because they’re diagnosed, and the “quirks” of the family are often just autistic traits.