Education Funding Pause

In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

Mark Lieberman at Education Week:

School districts, state leaders, and education experts continue to sound the alarm that the Trump administration’s hold on $6.8 billion in federal funds Congress already allocated for education will disproportionately harm students from low-income families, students with disabilities, and English learners.

The Trump administration notified states last week that seven federal education programs are currently under “ongoing programmatic review” despite a July 1 disbursement date enshrined in federal law.

The federal government distributes money for those programs using formulas that prioritize school districts with high concentrations of poverty.

...

The Trump administration sent the first of two scheduled installments of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funds ($15.8 billion in total) to every state as scheduled on July 1. But that doesn’t mean students with disabilities will be unaffected by federal funding changes.

Out of 5.3 million English learners nationwide, roughly 16%, or 837,000, also qualify for special education services. Some students who qualify for migrant education services or attend federally funded before- and after-school programs also have disabilities. Both could experience disrupted services as federal funding streams dry up more quickly than districts expected.

Many special education directors rely on Title IV-A funds in tandem with IDEA funds to provide mental health support and other health services for students with disabilities, said Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education.

The cancellation of that program has been particularly confounding, Mandlawitz said, because it’s a block-grant program just like the one the Trump administration has proposed in an effort to consolidate 18 separate federal funding streams.

“That is a flexible pot of $1.3 billion already allocated for school districts that they can use in a variety of ways,” Mandlawitz said. “To say you’re not going to give that money out makes absolutely no sense given their philosophy” on flexibility for states to spend education funds as they see fit

Measles Update

This month marks the 20th anniversary of  RFK Jr.'s infamous article "Deadly Immunity," which spread the lie that vaccines cause autism.    He is now HHS secretary and reaping the whirlwind of his vile dishonesty.

Tim Henderson at Statelline:

Measles cases have surpassed a recent 2019 record to reach the highest level since 1992, with at least 1,289 cases reported in 39 states.

The milestone comes as health officials are increasingly alarmed by vaccine skepticism gaining a voice in the Trump Administration’s Health and Human Services Administration under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Pediatricians and public health associations filed a federal lawsuit this week challenging a May directive by Kennedy, claiming it “creates barriers” to vaccination for pregnant women and young children.
...
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday that there were 1,288 cases in 38 states, surpassing the 2019 level of 1,274. South Carolina later reported its own first case of the year, an unvaccinated international traveler in the northwestern Upstate area of the state.

Wyoming reported its first measles case since 2010 on July 1, an unvaccinated child in Natrona County.

Other states recently joining the list: North Carolina reported its first case of the year June 24, in a child visiting Forsyth and Guilford counties from another country. And Oregon reported a case the same day for a person identified only as an unvaccinated international traveler sickened in June after returning to the Portland area.

From the lawsuit:

The Wakefield study ignited a wave of vaccine hesitancy and skepticism in the 21st century. In 2005, before he became Secretary, Mr. Kennedy published an article falsely linking thimerosal to autism40 Like Wakefield’s article, Mr. Kennedy’s article contained numerous errors and was retracted.

Because of his name and profile, Mr. Kennedy has been instrumental in increasing the levels of vaccine hesitancy and skepticism in this country. Before he was Secretary, Mr. Kennedy made opposing vaccines a central part of his public identity. During his confirmation hearing, Congress recognized Mr. Kennedy’s outsized role in creating vaccine hesitancy and skepticism in this country as evidenced by the Committee’s following question to him: “You advocate for medical practices that blatantly contradict scientific consensus and spread lifethreatening information. Will you commit to decision-making based on credible, peer-reviewed research, and acknowledge the danger of promoting unfounded theories?” Although Mr. Kennedy answered “yes” to this question,42 his actions as Secretary belie his answer

The Subminimum Wage Survives

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of people on the autism spectrum.

 Ryan Golden at HR Dive:

• The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday withdrew a Biden-era rule that aimed to phase out a section of the Fair Labor Standards Act that allowed employers to pay certain workers with disabilities wage rates that fall below the federal minimum wage.
• DOL’s rule, announced last December, would have ceased issuance of new certificates that allow employers to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities, while giving those with existing certificates a period of three years to gradually end the practice. At the time, the agency said subminimum wages were no longer necessary to preserve employment opportunities for participating workers.
• On Monday, the agency said it received more than 17,000 public comment submissions in response to the rule. It ultimately concluded that “a nonzero population” of workers rely upon the subminimum wage certificate program, and the department lacked authority to end the program because it had been mandated by an act of Congress.

In sharp contrast to the administration's many assertions of executive authority, DOL is now citing legal constraints From the Department of Labor:

The Department takes seriously the concerns expressed by Members of Congress and others that it lacks statutory authority to unilaterally and permanently terminate the issuance of section 14(c) certificates. Section 14 of the FLSA includes both permissive and mandatory provisions. For example, section 14(d) provides that the Secretary of Labor “ may by regulation or order” exempt certain student workers from FLSA wage-and-hour requirements. By contrast, section 14(c) states that the Secretary “ shall by regulation or order provide for the employment, under special certificates, of individuals . . . at wages which are . . . lower than the minimum wage” when the individual's disability impairs their earning or productive capacity. Where, as here, “a statute distinguishes between `may' and `shall,' it is generally clear that `shall' imposes a mandatory duty.” Kingdomware Tech., Inc. v. United States, 579 U.S. 162, 172 (2016) (citation omitted). Thus, section 14(c) imposes a mandatory duty on the Department to provide for the issuance of subminimum wage certificates “to the extent necessary to prevent curtailment of opportunities for employment.”

Measles Record

This month marks the 20th anniversary of  RFK Jr.'s infamous article "Deadly Immunity," which spread the lie that vaccines cause autism.    He is now HHS secretary and reaping the whirlwind of his vile dishonesty.

Teddy Rosenbluth and Jonathan Corum at NYT:

There have now been more measles cases in 2025 than in any other year since the contagious virus was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, according to new data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The grim milestone represents an alarming setback for the country’s public health and heightens concerns that if childhood vaccination rates do not improve, deadly outbreaks of measles — once considered a disease of the past — will become the new normal.

Experts fear that with no clear end to the spread in sight, the country is barreling toward another turning point: losing elimination status, a designation given to countries that have not had continuous spread of measles for more than a year.

“It’s a huge red flag for the direction in which we’re going,” said Dr. William Moss, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who has studied measles for more than 25 years.

Most of the cases this year have been tied to the Southwest outbreak — the largest single outbreak since 2000 — which began in January in a Mennonite community in West Texas and has since jumped to New Mexico and Oklahoma.

...

Efforts from local public health officials to contain outbreaks have also been hamstrung by the new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has downplayed the outbreak, offered only muted support of vaccines and endorsed unproven treatments for the virus. The federal health department has also tried to cut funding to state health departments.

OCR Is MIA

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities.

 Bianca Quilantan at Politico Weekly Education:

The Education Department’s civil rights arm is dismissing complaints at a rapid clip, prompting concern from former officials and advocates about its function amid staffing cuts.

— In court documents filed last week, the department disclosed that its Office for Civil Rights dismissed 3,424 complaints between March 11 and June 27 “consistent with OCR’s Case Processing Manual.” The documents state that 96 complaints were “resolved” because of insufficient evidence during an investigation — and another 290 complaints with voluntary agreements, settlements or technical assistance.

— OCR also received 4,833 complaints, opened 309 for investigation and opened 26 directed investigations, according to a court declaration filed by department chief of staff Rachel Oglesby as part of a case that challenged the agency’s decision to conduct a sweeping reduction in force.

— This all comes as seven of the department’s 12 regional civil rights offices across the country were eliminated during the massive reduction in force in March. A federal judge in Massachusetts, however, ordered those workers be called back, saying the mass layoffs “leaves OCR with the capacity to address only a small fraction of the complaints that it receives.”

RFK Jr. v. Science

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

 Another leading anti-vaxxer is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  He has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Rolling Stone and Salon retracted an RFK article linking vaccines to autism.  He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He is now Trump's Secretary of HHS. 

John Donvan and Caren Zucker at The Atlantic:

In speeches and interviews as health secretary, Kennedy has made clear his disdain for mainstream autism research, brushing aside the insights gained for this tremendously complex condition through years of research. Instead, backed by the enormous power of his federal office, Kennedy now appears determined to pursue his own long-held set of theories about autism: first, that we are in the midst of an autism epidemic (which is, in fact, highly debatable); second, that autism is caused by one or more “environmental toxins” (which incorrectly suggests that environmental factors have not been explored); and third, that powerful interests want this information covered up (a conspiracy-esque viewpoint that lacks evidence).

“The way the secretary characterizes autism research,” David Amaral, the research director at the MIND Institute at UC Davis and one of INSAR’s co-founders, told us, “it’s as if nobody’s been doing anything for the last 30 years.” Amaral was one of more than a dozen veteran researchers we met with over the four-day conference, whose faces all went dark anytime we asked about the impact of Kennedy’s muscling into their domain. They have been witnessing the health secretary bend the narrative of autism science in America. Their shared assessment: What he’s doing is not good.

The problem begins, in the researchers’ view, with Kennedy’s grasp of the science, which they say he either doesn’t understand or refuses to acknowledge. For instance, Kennedy has complained that too much money has been spent studying genetic causes of autism, describing this avenue as “a dead end.” Between sessions at the conference, the geneticist Joseph Buxbaum sat with us in an empty meeting room and sketched out on a piece of cardboard the numbers and timeline that demonstrate all that’s wrong with this viewpoint. Autism’s genetic underpinnings were first uncovered through studies of twins in the 1970s. Access to the human genome has now revealed that about 80 percent of the odds of being autistic are rooted in heritability. At INSAR this year, one of the most optimistic presentations focused on the progress being made toward genetics-based treatments. “It is shocking,” Buxbaum said of Kennedy’s apparent disregard for experts’ input.

Compounding the situation are the Trump administration’s blitz of DEI-focused executive orders and DOGE cuts, which are undermining autism research. The Autism Science Foundation has been circulating a questionnaire asking researchers to report funding lost this year. Dozens of responses have been received, so far adding up to more than $80 million worth of halted research and pending grants that now will not come through. Jobs have been lost. Future discoveries have been postponed, possibly for good.

 

Autism Digest Interview

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss divisions and factions within the autism community.

At Autism Digest, I did an interview with Kadin McElwain:

Bleachers

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss autism quackery.  There have been lots of bogus "cures" over the years: chelation, camel milk, "magic dirt," and products containing bleach. They do not work and some are dangerous. 

Josie Ensor at The Times:

Ignoring health authority warnings around the ingesting of chlorine dioxide, alternative health influencers are recommending people drink it with water, spray it on skin and even use it in enemas as a “cure” for everything from measles to cancer, HIV and autism.
...
Kennedy, who has built a huge following promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, has not explicitly promoted chlorine dioxide as a treatment. But during his Senate confirmation hearing in January, he referred to the chemical substance and praised Trump for “looking at all of the different remedies” for Covid, “including even chlorine dioxide”.

...

In recent months, interest has exploded among social media groups such as those called “Chlorine Dioxide” and “Secret Mineral”, some of which have added thousands of new followers on Facebook from the US, UK and across the world.

...

In May, the movement was given its first mainstream boost when [Andreas] Kalcker was invited to a “Truth Seekers” conference at the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami, a two-day event featuring anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists.

Though the conference was a closed event, The Times found video and photographs posted on the social media accounts of attendees. A number of products appeared to be on sale to ticket-holders, including chlorine dioxide-based nasal sprays sold by Michelle Herman.

...

The American Association of Poison Control Centers recorded more than 16,000 cases of chlorine dioxide poisoning, including 2,500 cases of children under 12, in 2020, the last year it published figures on the trend. Many of those individuals suffered serious side-effects, the group noted, including a six-year-old autistic girl who required hospital treatment for liver failure.

...

Emma Dalmayne, an autism campaigner who has several autistic children and was diagnosed herself, said giving any legitimacy to bleach cures was dangerous. “It’s one thing if a consenting adult decides to take this, but we are seeing children held down and given enemas,” she told The Times. “Sometimes drops are put into their babies’ bottles.”

Dalmayne said her advocacy has attracted hate mail, threats and even bullets through the post, believed to be sent by members of the bleacher community trying to “silence” her.

Dr. Hotez v. Vaccine Misinformation

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

 At TNR, Melody Schreiber writes of RFK Jr.:

“It’s hard to know how this is all going to play out. But right now, everything appears very dark,” said Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. And yet, he added, “I don’t think we’ve hit bottom. I think he’s continuing to chip away, with some pretty big chips, to erode our vaccine ecosystem. I don’t see a turnaround at this point. We’re still in free fall as far as I’m concerned.”

Work Reporting Requirements

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance and Medicaid services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) are particularly important. Congress is about to slash Medicaid.

Bram Sable-Smith at KFF:

Republicans have touted Medicaid work requirements both as a way to reduce federal spending on the program and as a moral imperative for Americans.

“Go out there. Do entry-level jobs. Get into the workforce. Prove that you matter. Get agency into your own life,” Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a recent interview on Fox Business.

Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the requirements as bureaucratic red tape that won’t meaningfully increase employment but will cause eligible people to lose their health insurance because of administrative hurdles.

Indeed, the vast majority of Americans enrolled in Medicaid expansion are already working, caregiving, attending school, or have a disability, according to an analysis by KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

And while the Congressional Budget Office estimates the work requirement included in the House bill would cause 4.8 million Americans to lose their insurance, only about 300,000 of those people are unemployed because of lack of interest in working, according to the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group. Recent history in states that have tried work requirements suggests technical and paperwork problems have caused a substantial portion of coverage losses.

Kim Gallagher had to give up guardianship of her son so she could receive pay for being his caregiver.

Gallagher worries about her coverage, because she recently was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the thyroid gland. She said she had to search for her Medicaid card to fill the prescription that followed, having barely used it in the year in a half she’s been covered.

She also worries about her son’s Medicaid. A nursing home is not a realistic option, considering his needs. His coverage doubles as Gallagher’s only source of income and also pays for other caregivers, when she can find them, who give her breaks to tend to her own health and to her aging parents.

But nearly all in-home services like those Daniel receives are optional programs that states are not required to include in their Medicaid programs. And the magnitude of the cuts being proposed have prompted fears that the optional programs could be chopped.

“It would destroy our lives,” Gallagher said. “The only income we would have would be Daniel’s Social Security.”

Medicaid Cuts

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance and Medicaid services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) are particularly important. Congress is about to slash Medicaid.

Margot Sanger-Katz and Emily Badger at NYT:

Instead of explicitly reducing benefits, Republicans would make them harder to get and to keep. The effect, analysts say, is the same, with millions fewer Americans receiving assistance. By including dozens of changes to dates, deadlines, document requirements and rules, Republicans have turned paperwork into one of the bill’s crucial policy-making tools, yielding hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to help offset their signature tax cuts.

...

Decades of evidence show that administrative barriers prevent vulnerable families from receiving benefits, while simplifying programs can increase use. In the first Trump administration, more frequent Medicaid eligibility checks led to losses in health coverage for more than a million poor children. Studies of student aid applications have shown that programs that help families fill out the forms boost college participation.

At the same time, there is no evidence that work requirements in food or health care programs actually cause more people to work — a consistent finding that the budget office folds into its estimates of the policy’s savings.

“Study after study after study, year after year after year have pointed out we really need to call them work reporting requirements, not work requirements,” said Heather Hahn, an associate vice president in the family and financial well-being division at the Urban Institute.

 The American Association of People with Disabilities:

The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) strongly condemns the budget reconciliation bill passed by the Senate, which includes an alarming $930 billion in cuts to Medicaid. These proposed cuts are even more severe than those passed by the House of Representatives and represent a direct threat to the health, independence, and lives of millions of Americans with disabilities.

Medicaid is a lifeline for people with disabilities. It provides essential services such as home and community-based services, employment supports, and critical medical treatments that enable individuals to live independently, participate in their communities, and maintain their well-being. The deep cuts proposed in this Senate bill would dismantle these vital supports, forcing many people with disabilities into institutions, limiting access to necessary medical care, and ultimately jeopardizing their ability to live full and meaningful lives.

The bill also includes stricter work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps millions of people with disabilities, older adults, and their families buy food each month. Furthermore, it goes beyond proposing SNAP cuts and also shifts the cost onto states, which would significantly impact their budgets and hit rural communities the hardest.

“The Senate’s budget reconciliation bill is a cruel assault on disabled people and other marginalized communities,” said Maria Town, President and CEO of AAPD. “These unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and SNAP will not only strip away essential services but will also inflict immeasurable harm on individuals with disabilities, their families, and their communities, all under the deceitful guise of preventing waste, fraud, and abuse, which rarely occurs. Disabled people have fought cuts before, and we will not only continue to fight against cuts that slash our services and threaten our rights, we will fight for more investment in services so that disabled people have what we need to thrive,” Town continued.

“AAPD also extends its sincere gratitude to the Senators who, during the exhaustive 20-hour ‘vote-a-rama,’ offered crucial amendments to remove the bill’s cruelest provisions. This resulted in the removal of the harmful moratorium on state laws regulating the use of artificial intelligence and included proposed amendments to strip the bill of some of the worst of the Medicaid cuts, remove onerous work requirements, prevent bans on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming and reproductive healthcare, and preserve vital food assistance. Their tireless work to mitigate the harm of this bill and make our government responsive to the daily needs of the American people is deeply appreciated,” Town concluded.

This fight is not over. The bill now returns to the House of Representatives for a vote on the Senate’s version. We are encouraged that some House members have already indicated their opposition to this harmful legislation. We urge all concerned citizens to contact their Representatives immediately and demand they vote NO on this destructive bill. The AAPD is firmly against any legislation that undermines the rights and well-being of people with disabilities. We call on Congress to protect Medicaid and ensure that people with disabilities have continued access to the services they need to thrive

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"Risk" and "Cause" Are Not the Same

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss various ideas about what causes the condition.  The literature has identified dozens of potential causes and correlates.

Stephen Camarata at Psychology Today:

The truth is that finding a cause for autism is not that simple and will undoubtedly require more than a few months. The current state of the art in autism research indicates that there are a plethora of factors plausibly posited as “causes.”

For example, an extensive research literature highlights potential genetic contributions: A recent review concluded “The cause of autism seems to be multifactorial. Genetic mechanisms play a particularly large role as a cause of autism, and a substantial number of DNA studies have discovered a polygenic risk factor in autism[2].”

But a “risk” does not necessarily mean “cause.” A well-known example of this can be seen in cancer research. Evidently, herpes virus (HSV) is a highly significant risk factor for developing cervical cancer, and was once widely believed to be a “cause” of this form of cancer. But another virus, Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), is more directly implicated in cervical cancer to the extent that the US Centers for Disease Control now reports, “More than 9 of every 10 cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV. Almost all cervical cancer can be prevented by HPV vaccination.”[4]

...

It may be instructive to bear in mind that families have been victimized by a whole series of proclamations on the "cause" of autism[9], ranging from "refrigerator moms" who withheld attention and attachment to their child to the Wakefield debacle wherein the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine was touted as the cause. [10] Ultimately, the article promoting this cause was withdrawn from publication in disgrace.

Research on Profound Autism

 In The Politics of Autism, I write:

The most basic questions trigger angry arguments. For instance, into what category do we put autism in the first place? In 2013, President Obama said that “we’re still unable to cure diseases like Alzheimer's or autism or fully reverse the effects of a stroke.” The language of “disease” and “cure” offends some in the autism community. “We don’t view autism as a disease to be cured and we don’t think we need fixing,” says Ari Ne’eman of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. “We do feel comfortable with the word disability because we understand what it means.” From this perspective, autism is difference that requires accommodation, not an illness that requires eradication. Adherents of this position liken autism to homosexuality, which psychiatrists once deemed to be a  disorder. Conversely, some parents take offense at opposition to a cure. “Anyone with the mental and verbal ability to challenge autism research is not autistic on a scale that I care to recognize,” writes autism parent James Terminello. “Opposition to finding a cure is particularly hurtful to parents who still mourn the loss of the child that could have been. A line has been crossed.”

Gabrielle M. Etzel at The Washington Examiner:

Judith Ursitti, president of the Profound Autism Alliance, told the Washington Examiner that ending genetic research on autism simply because of the risk that it could be used to justify selective abortion is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“What we have to do is focus on finding ways to prevent eugenics while we’re making progress,” said Ursitti. “It’s a tough situation, but humanity is capable of doing good things with powerful science.”

Ursitti, the mother of an autistic son with high support needs, said Kennedy’s description of people with severe disabilities “did not really respect the dignity of people with profound autism.” Still, she said, she supports the administration’s efforts to improve research on the causes of autism for the purposes of developing treatments for severe symptoms.

PAA has been instrumental in advocating the term “profound autism” and establishing more standardized research criteria. PAA’s definition of profound autism requires that an individual needs 24/7 care from an adult their entire life, has minimal or no language ability, has an IQ below 50, or a combination of all three criteria.

The CDC found in 2023 that roughly 27% of children diagnosed with autism fit the PAA’s criteria for profound autism. PAA’s research has found that individuals with profound autism are only included in 6% of the clinical research on the disorder.

“There is, in our world, a lot of suffering,” said Ursitti. “There’s death, there’s really horrific self-injury. And again, we value human beings that have profound autism. We love them. We want them to contribute to the world. But the suffering has kind of been pushed to the side a little bit.”

Ursitti highlighted that there are no pharmaceutical options on the market for autism-related aggression or depression symptoms, but understanding the etiology of autism could result in autism-specific pharmaceuticals or therapies.