As the Food and Drug Administration quietly removed the web page that warned parents about fake autism cures, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has nominated people who have promoted some of these same cures.
It’s part of the Health and Human Services secretary’s larger efforts to reorient policy toward discovering the origins of a supposed autism “epidemic” and “fighting” a condition that he insists “destroys families.” His wave of attacks come to fulfill campaign promises he has long made, even if they lack the backing of the wider scientific community.
And it’s changing the way America looks at the condition. Kennedy’s appointments to an obscure advisory committee could completely reorient the priorities of the federal government when it comes to autism and focus more on faulty cures or looking more into the debunked link between vaccines and autism.
“The concern is, every day, many thousands of new children and adults are being diagnosed with autism, and this is brand new,” Helen Tager-Flusberg, a former member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee member, told The Independent. “They're going to go to the FDA to look for treatments, and they're going to see anything goes. And they'll go on the internet, and these are the treatments that will come into that feed all these alternative kinds of treatments that are so dangerous.”
As late as December, the FDA had a webpage warning against products and treatments that claim to cure autism spectrum disorder, warning that some of them “may carry significant health risks.”
Some of the treatments included “Chelation Therapies,” which claim to “cleanse the body of toxic chemicals,” even though chelating agents are not approved by the FDA for autism; “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy,” wherein a patient breathes pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber.
“Few diseases or conditions can be treated quickly, so be suspicious of any therapy claimed as a ‘quick fix,’” the website said.
But in January, the website disappeared.
The Independent has reached out to the FDA about why the page is no longer accessible.
Last month, Kennedy announced his appointees for the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee to help him “fight autism.” And some of the people had previously promoted the same cures that the FDA had previously warned against.
“In one way or another, every single appointee subscribes to some alternative views of what autism is And they it's just so unrepresentative of the mainstream autism community,” Tager-Flusberg, a professor of psychological brain services at Boston University, told The Independent.
Among the new members are Sylvia Fogel, a doctor and assistant in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, who opposed mandates on vaccines though she has praised the effects of immunization.
Others include Daniel Rossignol, a doctor who in 2011 faced a lawsuit from an Illinois father named James Coman who alleged that Rossignol and another physician subjected his son to chelation therapy, among a host of other fraudulent treatments, ABC News reported at the time. Coman’s lawyer told The Independent last week that Coman decided to not go forward with the lawsuit.
Kennedy also appointed Elizabeth Mumper, a physician who co-authored a study on the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy with Rossignol. Mumper has also written for the Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy’s nonprofit, about how after she administered a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, a child patient of hers developed autism.
“Given the IACC’s role is to make recommendations to the government about autism research and policy, the fact that there's been this like anti vaccine, kind of takeover of the IACC is really concerning, and leads me to worry, as some of RFK Jr.’s other actions have, that HHS is going to try to open up studies into the idea of a link between vaccines and autism,” Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self-Advocacy Netowork, told The Independent.
Another member, Lisa Ackerman, is a longtime ally of Kennedy’s and he spoke at the Green Our Vaccines rally in 2008 led by her organization Talk About Curing Autism, now known as The Autism Community in Action.
Honey Rinicella, a mom of two autistic sons who has also held leadership roles in the community, also said vaccines “totally took” one of her sons out when she spoke at a MAHA Institute event, which is shorthand for Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again slogan.
Kennedy also nominated Toby Rogers, who co-authored a study claiming the coming “autism tsunami” could cost roughly $5.54 trillion a year by 2060, which was later retracted. He has also contributed articles to the Children’s Health Defense.
Congress first passed the legislation for the autism community in 2006, then called the Combating Autism Act. It has since been reauthorized in 2011, 2014, 2019 and 2024. The 2014 reauthorization changed its name to the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support Act.
President Donald Trump reauthorized the legislation in his first tenure in the White House. The legislation also required the commitee to coordinate across various government branches to provide advice on autism policy not just across the HHS and the National Institutes of Health, but also agencies including the Department of Education, Department of Defense and the Department of Justice.
The legislation also requires that the committee have at least three autistic self-advocates, which it does. But Samantha Crane, an autistic self-advocate and former committee member, told The Independent that the committee is now doing the bare minimum.
“So there's sort of an implication that if they could have not appointed any autistic people to the IACC, they would have done that,” Crane told The Independent.
“It's sort of especially concerning that anyone who could potentially voice a concern about the science behind what people are saying has been sort of purged,” Crane said.
Many of the people on the committee who have promoted these types of bogus treatments for autism also contributed to Kennedy’s failed 2024 run for president. Kennedy initially ran to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination before staging an independent run. He later dropped out and endorsed Trump.
Trump nominated Kennedy to be secretary of Health and Human Services. Like Kennedy, Trump has long speculated about the debunked link between autism and vaccines.
In an statement to The Indendent, HHS defended the appointments to the commitee.
“The 21 new members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) bring decades of experience in autism research and clinical care.,” Emily Hillard said in a statement. “They are committed to advancing innovation in autism research, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention to align federal policy with current gold-standard science.”
The department also said that autism spectrum disorder surged “nearly 400” percent, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s own report said that the increase in diagnoses likely came from better detections.
Gross said there could wide-ranging effects of having people who promote disinformation around autism in an official government capacity.
“But when people who purvey these fake yours and quack treatments, and sometimes very dangerous quack treatments, they really prey on parents panic and anxiety,” she said.
Flusberg said that this might cause additional stress on physicians and pediatricians.
“I don't think our pediatricians and our other clinicians have the bandwidth to cope with, you know, all this misinformation,” she said. “We have turned the clock back more than 70 years at this point.”
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