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It's the Brian Laris Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

So April is Autism Awareness Month, as some of you know, a time in which we're supposed to honor the diverse life experiences of those on the spectrum.

Right.

Instead, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has ruffled the feathers of autism advocates and people on the spectrum.

With this comment he made at a news conference last week, let's listen.

This is an individual tragedy as well.

Autism destroys families.

More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which are children.

These are children who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who many of them were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're two years old and these are kids who will never pay taxes they'll never

hold a job I'll never play baseball they'll never write a poem I'll never go out on a date. Many of them will

never use a toilet unassisted. And we have to recognize we are doing this to our children.

And we need to put an end to it. RFK Jr. last week. There's so much to question in that, which we will do with our guest in just a second,

but also in the news this week.

The National Institute of Health's director, Jay Batacharya, announced to a panel of experts

that the agency will begin collecting scores of private pieces of medical data from

Americans to conduct a study on the causes of autism.

This data will come from federal and commercial databases, like, quote,

medication records from pharmacies, lab testing, and genomics data from patients treated by the

Department of Veterans Affairs, and Indian Indian Health Service claims from private insurers

and data from smart watchers and fitness trackers, that according to the Guardian.

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