President Donald Trump has tasked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a global team of scientists with uncovering the cause behind the alarming rise in autism rates in the United States, promising results by September. The initiative is part of Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, driven by a newly signed executive order to investigate chronic childhood illnesses including autism and asthma.
At a Cabinet meeting open to the press, Kennedy addressed the president directly, saying, “At your direction, we are going to know by September.” He emphasized the scale of the effort, calling it a “massive testing and research effort” involving hundreds of scientists worldwide. Kennedy promised the administration would be able to identify and eliminate the exposures driving what he referred to as the autism epidemic.
The urgency of the mission was underscored by Trump’s response. “So it was 1-in-10,000 children had autism. Now it’s 1-in-31 … That’s a horrible statistic,” the president said, describing the sharp rise as “artificial.” He added, “There will be no bigger news conference than that … if you can come up with that answer where you stop taking something, you stop eating something, or maybe it’s a shot, but something’s causing it.”
The initiative marks one of the most comprehensive government-led investigations into the autism crisis in recent memory. While previous research has explored both genetic predispositions and environmental triggers, the cause of autism remains widely debated. The Trump administration’s commitment to finding a definitive answer represents a stark shift from past approaches that often avoided direct inquiry into environmental or medical contributors.
Reports of parents reversing some autism symptoms in children using alternative treatments have fueled growing public demand for answers. Earlier this year, CBS News featured a case in which a non-verbal child began speaking shortly after receiving an off-label prescription of Leucovorin, a drug typically used in chemotherapy support. While anecdotal, such cases have added urgency to the search for underlying causes and potential interventions.
The “Make America Healthy Again” Commission, led in part by Kennedy, will focus not only on autism but also on a range of chronic conditions increasingly affecting American children. Trump’s promise of answers by September puts the federal government on a timeline that could produce one of the most significant medical revelations in decades.
