RFK Jr Claims His Agency Has Discovered the Root Cause of Autism
Experts say RFK Jr. is likely to blame vaccines.
Published Aug. 28 2025, 3:03 p.m. ET
At an August 2025 meeting with the president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) reaffirmed his promise to deliver a report uncovering the cause of autism in September. The Health and Human Services Secretary has said that he believes that this report will finally show what is behind the rise in autism cases, and what can be done to bring that number down.
RFK Jr. says that his agency is likely to play a big role in what comes next, hinting that there will be regulatory action taken in the future.
However, many remain skeptical of RFK Jr's report, and they believe that he will continue to peddle some of the causes he personally believes are behind autism, despite years of research that say otherwise.
Still, people from both sides of the aisle are awaiting the report with curiosity, especially since RFK Jr. has made such strong promises about what will be in his September report and how it will help the U.S. government lower the autism rates in the future.
Here's everything we know.
RFK Jr. says he will release a report in September that will detail the cause of autism.
The Health and Human Services Secretary appeared on an Aug. 28, 2025, episode of Fox & Friends, where he explained the importance of the report and what his agency had uncovered, calling the rise of autism diagnoses an epidemic.
“This is a crisis,” he said during his interview. “There is not a single cause. There are many, many — there’s an aggregation of causes.” As such, Kennedy says that his agency will be asking for "regulatory action."
Just days prior, Kennedy had promised Donald Trump that the agency's research was going very well. “We will have announcements as promised in September, finding interventions, certain interventions, now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism," he said, according to The Hill. "And we’re going to be able to address those in September.”
While Kennedy has long believed that autism is caused by certain environmental factors, like vaccines, this has been debunked by experts.
As for the increase in cases over the years, well, researchers believe that this is simply a case of medical advancements when it comes to testing and identifying autism, instead of an actual increase in the number of people who have the disorder.
People remain highly skeptical of RFK Jr's autism report.
On Reddit, people mocked the news that a report was forthcoming. "Because all legit medical research starts off with a set deadline for when you have [results]," one person wrote.
Another person pointed to the recent layoffs and terminations at the Department of Health and Human Services, noting that many of the people who would be able to accurately review and access this data may have already lost their jobs.
"Obviously. He needs a specific result, he's not going to risk leaving it up to people who know what they're doing or talking about," yet another person chimed in.
RFK Jr. has been criticized for his support of fringe medical theories, and much of his confirmation hearing was fact-checked by experts at ABC News who said his answers to certain questions were at odds with the truth, including Kennedy's claim that Lyme disease was most likely a bioweapon engineered by the military.
Still, many are curious about what RFK Jr. will report once he unveils the data from his agency's findings, and what changes he will try to make as a result.