In this op-ed, Emma Cieslik asserts that RFK Jr.'s autism “cure” is less about Tylenol than it is "fixing" autistic people who do not want or need fixing.
On September 22, President Donald Trump and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made an announcement that they’ve been teasing for a long time, and one that autistic people like me have been dreading. Defying years of scientific and medical evidence that proves it safe, Trump said acetaminophen (often called by the brand name Tylenol) used during pregnancy “can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.” It gets worse: Trump and Kennedy also introduced the drug leucovorin, a form of folic acid typically used to treat side effects in cancer patients, as a potential autism “cure.”
This announcement is devastating and unfounded, reinforcing the false idea that autism is something that can and should be cured. By extension, it also weaponizes the existence of a cure to argue that autistic people should not exist. Autism is a way of processing information and engaging with the world differently, not deficiently. When someone promises a cure for something that is not a disease, like autism, that cure becomes a weapon to pathologize the very thing it claims to remedy.
As an autistic person, I grew up internalizing the ableism that Kennedy specifically now galvanizes. For much of my life, this “find a cure” campaign was spearheaded by ableist parents, doctors, and advocates who had some social capital, but not necessarily a national stage. Kennedy, who has long spread misinformation about the apparent “cause” of autism, now does. While Kennedy could use his platform to mobilize research about accessibility and champion more inclusive schools and workplaces, he chooses to use it instead to argue that autism is connected to vaccines, “environmental toxins,” and now Tylenol. People who have long been pushing for dialogue about food purity, anti-vaccination, and medical denial to enter the mainstream have found their champion in Kennedy. For autistic people like me, we have found one of our greatest threats.
Autism has historically been misunderstood, leaving our community vulnerable to violence and abuse. According to a 2024 report, evidence suggests that autistic people are more likely than the general population to experience interpersonal violence. And, advocates told NBC News that people with autism and other disabilities are vulnerable to police violence because of a fundamental misunderstanding on autistic people and our needs. Before autism was officially recognized, disabled and neurodivergent people faced severe discrimination and abuse.
In Nazi Germany, eugenic rhetoric was used to isolate and attempt to shape autistic children into “productive citizens, according to a book by Edith Sheffer. Those who couldn’t be molded could be deemed “unworthy lives,” and were killed through starvation or lethal injection. Nazi officials were able to exert this control because midwives and parents were encouraged to report and surrender disabled infants and children to be registered and enrolled in state-run institutions.
It’s this deeply disturbing history that rang in the ears of autistic individuals during Trump and Kennedy’s announcement, and during the many months leading up to this moment. This past April, Kennedy claimed that children are being diagnosed with autism at an “alarming rate.” The press conference was held just a day after the CDC published a report estimating that 1 in every 31 children has autism. “Autism destroys families,” he said, “but more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource — our children.”
Kennedy wrongly asserted that autistic children will never pay taxes, hold a job, or play baseball. His comments were strongly criticized by autistic individuals and activist networks who argued his words reinforced the false idea that autism is a disease and denied the contributions and validity of autistic adults in the United States. That’s not all. National Institutes of Health director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said he would create a registry of autistic individuals, an echo of the Nazi registries that did disabled people so much harm. NPR reports that HHS sources say this won’t be an autism registry, but a “real-world data platform.” In May, Kennedy stated that the National Institutes of Health would be working together with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to create a database collating information from medical records, wearable devices, and insurance claims to find the “root cause” of autism.
“We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” Kennedy said in a statement, and just last month, Kennedy’s database of autistic individuals got a name: the Autism Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network.
What many people forget is that, like conversion therapy for LGBTQ people, efforts to cure autism are built on the idea that there is something inherently wrong or fixable about us. These ableist conversion efforts are a form of colonization, set on glorifying a set expression of gender, sexuality, and able-bodiedness. Kennedy chooses to spread ableist rhetoric on a national stage, promising to Make America Healthy Again in part by denying the personhood of autistic Americans. Proposing a cure is a threat to who we are because it asserts not just that we should not exist, but that there are tangible ways to stop more people like us from being born.
Today, that cure is preventing pregnant people from taking Tylenol, but as disabled people, we know that this is likely not going to be the final cure — and we are terrified for what comes next.
