Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named Dr. John Gaitanis, a pediatric neurologist who co-founded a telehealth company built around helping autistic children obtain leucovorin, as chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. The committee helps the federal government decide how to allocate roughly $2 billion in autism research, STAT reported on Tuesday. HHS said the appointment took effect September 18.
The appointment puts a leading advocate of a disputed autism treatment at the head of a panel that helps shape federal research priorities. For families of autistic children, the practical question is whether leucovorin could receive more federal attention and funding even though the FDA has said the evidence does not support its use for autism.
