The White House Cabinet meeting held in April was weird for a great many reasons, but it was a comment from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that stood out. At Donald Trump’s “direction,” the health secretary declared that U.S. officials would discover the causes of autism — in less than six months.
“We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy boasted. “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
The president seemed delighted, responding that such news would be “so big.” He proceeded to ask Kennedy: “So, you think you’re going to have a pretty good idea, huh?”
“We will know by September,” the secretary replied.
To that end, the public learned in June that Kennedy had hired David Geier, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to help hunt for evidence about the causes of autism. Two months later, at another White House Cabinet meeting, the health secretary had an opportunity to lower expectations, but he did the opposite.
RFK Jr: "We're finding certain interventions now that are almost certainly causing autism. We are gonna be able to address those in September."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-26T17:10:04.796Z
“We are doing very well,” Kennedy said, referring to his team’s research efforts. “We will have announcements, as promised, in September. We’re finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism and we’re going to be able to address those in September.”
So, whatever happened to this?
To be sure, the president and Kennedy held a White House event last week in which Trump peddled a series of absurdities, culminating in him saying “Don’t take Tylenol” 11 times. At no point, however, did the president or his health secretary get around to identifying “what has caused” autism or undermining the science that proves that vaccines do not cause autism. It led Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as Trump’s surgeon general during the president’s first term, to note online: “The White House, HHS, and all of the media have (completely) buried the lede. Every news headline should actually read: ‘Despite bringing the full resources of the U.S. government to bear, RFK fails to find a connection between vaccines and autism!’” It was hardly an unreasonable point. Kennedy told the public, more than once, that he would deliver groundbreaking news in September. He and his team then launched “a massive testing and research effort,” which included “hundreds of scientists from around the world,” all in the hopes of confirming RFK Jr.’s unscientific ideas. It’s October. He failed.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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