Summary

RFK Jr. is using private medical records to create a registry of people with autism in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health is helping to collect private medical records from government and commercial databases, including “prescription records from pharmacies, lab testing, and genomics records from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, private insurance claims, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers.”

Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, has made the study of autism one of HHS’s primary goals. He has called autism “preventable” and claimed “he can find a cure for the condition by September.”

  • The_Caretaker@lemm.ee
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    14 hours ago

    The first group the Nazis killed were not Jews. They killed the physically and mentally disabled first. Once they saw that the public didn’t push back, they knew they could do whatever they wanted. They believed people born with disabilities were not useful and their blood would tarnish the purity of the superior race. RFK’s bullshit should terrify all of us.

    • monotremata@lemmy.ca
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      3 hours ago

      Especially since he’s already been on TV talking about how “these are people who will never pay taxes. they’ll never hold a job. they’ll never play baseball. they’ll never write a poem. they’ll never go on a date. many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.” He’s explicitly pushing the narrative that autistic people are useless.

      Seriously, I was thinking about getting evaluated, and this gives me the chills. I will not be seeing an evaluation at this time.

      • Novocirab@feddit.org
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        3 hours ago

        Seriously, I was thinking about getting evaluated, and this gives me the chills. I will not be seeing an evaluation at this time.

        A lot of people are probably going to make the same rational decision — which, of course, will make the number of issued diagnoses go down. These fuckers will most likely try to take that as evidence that their policies worked.

    • enthusiasticamoeba@lemmy.ml
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      10 hours ago

      Also, the term Asperger’s was coined in Nazi Germany to help determine which patients with autism (back then considered a subgroup of schizophrenia) were fit for labor camps and which were destined for death camps.

      Which is part of the reason we don’t use the label Asperger’s anymore.

      • The_Caretaker@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        I was diagnosed with ASD as a child in the early 1980s. Fortunately none of the clinic’s records were on computers and the clinic has been out of business for decades. I wouldn’t want RFK, Trump or Musk deciding if I am fit for a labor camp or not.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      RFK is not the killing type, he is more of a “grandma giving you kombucha something sweet drink instead of actual medicine” type. He even talks like one.

      That’s dangerous, but blood purity is something I’d expect his background to actually prevent him from believing to be good. With ecology, eating raw meat and such things. Not the kind of people to think being inbred is good.

      • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Exactly. I can see him banning any amphetamine/stimulant medications for ADHD first before having them rounded up, or instead of banning them outright, they decide to use them as a leash on people who could be problematic. “Do this thing for that long, and you get your dose. Break the rules, and we cut you off.”

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          I think he was for less regulation for medications, not more, and more regulation for food, not less. Anyway guessing what will he do is not very useful.