ABC News — RFK Jr. is calling out the media and powerful industries for trying to bury the truth about environmental exposures linked to autism.
Pointing to a 1992 ADDM report showing that autism rates have skyrocketed nearly fivefold over the past 30 years.
The rate used to be 1 in 150. Today, it’s 1 in 31.
“It’s clear that the rates are real,” Kennedy stressed.
“Year by year there is a steady, relentless increase. I want it because this epidemic denial has become a feature in the mainstream media and it’s based on an industry canard.
“Obviously there are people who don’t want us to look at environmental exposures,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy cited a peer-reviewed 1987 study from North Dakota that set out to find every child in the state with a developmental disorder.
Researchers combed through medical records, verified diagnoses, and conducted in-person evaluations across a population of 180,000 children. Then, they followed that same group for 12 years.
If you still believe autism rates are only rising because of improved diagnosis, Kennedy said, you’d have to believe those researchers somehow overlooked 98.8% of autistic children.
But they didn’t.
“They went back in 2000 and found that they had missed exactly one child,” he said.
“They weren’t missing all these cases. The epidemic is real.”
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