Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy set the tone back in April when he announced the Trump administration’s plan to find the cause of autism. He declared that “autism destroys families.” He described children “who will never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date.”
On Monday, President Donald Trump carried that message forward, calling autism a “horrible, horrible crisis” and suggesting — without evidence — that Tylenol could be the cause and that leucovorin, a type of folic acid, might be a treatment. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary added, “if you’ve seen a kid with autism, with severe autism, it’s hard to watch.”