Causes of Autism

  In The Politics of Autism, I discuss various ideas about what causes the condition. Contrary to the lies of Trump and RFK Jr., vaccines do not cause autism.

So what does?

The literature has identified at least 45 potential causes and correlates.

Sumathi Reddy at WSJ:

More than two dozen studies have looked at the MMR vaccine and autism and not found a link. These include a massive 2019 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which looked at more than 600,000 children in Denmark. These studies have been done in different styles and different countries. All have reached the same conclusion.

Rather than vaccines, scientists say genetics plays the dominant role—both inherited traits and spontaneous mutations in early conception.

In other words, ASD is largely out of our control. More often than not, people with heritable genetic traits for autism don’t even know it.

...
Genetic and environmental factors together most likely result in an increased risk of someone developing autism, says Heather Volk, a professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She and other researchers have studied air-pollution exposure during pregnancy and found an association with autism.

Part of the frustration with autism risk is there isn’t much we can do to control it. Staying healthy during pregnancy, however, can help minimize risk.

Janine LaSalle, a professor of microbiology and immunity at University of California, Davis, says there is evidence suggesting that maternal health risks—such as obesity, weight gained during pregnancy and gestational diabetes—can increase the risk of having a child with autism.

Another protective action pregnant moms can consider is taking a prenatal vitamin with folic acid and iron supplementation. This is especially important in the first month of pregnancy and so should be started when a woman is trying to conceive, says LaSalle.

“If there was a single smoking gun it would have been found by now,” says LaSalle. “It really is the complexity of the formation of the human brain, and there’s just so many things that can influence it.”

Scrapping the Administration for Community Living

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in campaign politics.   In the 2016 campaign, a number of posts discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues more generally.   As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities.   

A week ago, Kalyn Belsha and Erica Meltzer reported at Chalkbeat: "It’s unclear what part of HHS would oversee special education. Some disability rights advocates say it could be the Administration for Community Living, which supports adults with disabilities..."

Not now.

Jessica Hall at Marketwatch:

With the announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services that it will slash its workforce, consolidate divisions and close regional offices, an agency focused on older adults and people with disabilities has become collateral damage.

The Administration for Community Living will be disbanded and its “critical” programs will be integrated into other HHS agencies such as the Administration for Children and Families, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the HHS said. The department did not say which ACL programs were considered “critical” and which would be eliminated.

“These are programs that truly are lifesaving and critical,” Alison Barkoff, who headed the ACL from 2021 to 2024, told MarketWatch. “Dozens of millions of older adults and people with disabilities may not know the name ACL, but they know senior centers and Meals on Wheels and programs that touch their lives every day.”

In fiscal 2022, the ACL provided more than 261 million meals to older adults, assistance such as respite care to more than 1.5 million family caregivers, and independent-living services to nearly 250,000 people with disabilities, Barkoff said.

According to the HHS announcement, the department’s current 82,000 full-time employees will be reduced to 62,000. Meanwhile, 28 divisions will be consolidated into 15, and the number of regional offices will be cut from 10 to five. As part of that reorganization, the ACL will no longer exist.

Measles Wins Again

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 presidential candidate 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.  Trump has directed him to investigate autism.  In turn, RFK gave that task to David Geier -- a notorious antivaxxer who does not have a medical or graduate degree.

Christina Jewett, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Noah Weiland at NYT:

The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned under pressure Friday and said that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive stance on vaccines was irresponsible and posed a danger to the public.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr. Marks wrote to Sara Brenner, the agency’s acting commissioner. He reiterated the sentiments in an interview, saying: “This man doesn’t care about the truth. He cares about what is making him followers.”

Dr. Marks resigned after he was summoned to the Department of Health and Human Services Friday afternoon and told that he could either quit or be fired, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dr. Marks led the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which authorized and monitored the safety of vaccines and a wide array of other treatments, including cell and gene therapies. He was viewed as a steady hand by many during the Covid pandemic but had come under criticism for being overly generous to companies that sought approvals for therapies with mixed evidence of a benefit.

Randi Richardson at NBC:

Fueled by the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, cases in the United States this year now exceed 500, according to NBC News’ tally of state health department data.

The 523 cases recorded in less than three months represent the second-highest annual total the country has seen in a decade. In the only year with more cases, 2019, the United States nearly lost its measles elimination status.

Since the Texas outbreak began in late January, 400 cases have been confirmed in the state, the Department of State Health Services said in an update Friday. Forty-one patients have been hospitalized, and a 6-year-old child has died.

 

California Master Plan

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss services for people with disabilities.

Regional centers are private nonprofits that contract with California's Department of Developmental Services to coordinate or provide services for people with developmental disabilities. The 21 regional centers help disabled people and their families find and access a variety of services.

A release from California Governor Gavin Newsom:

The Master Plan for Developmental Services: A Community-Driven Vision was released today with recommendations for strengthening support for Californians with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families to live in the community.

Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the release of the Master Plan for Developmental Services: A Community-Driven Vision (Plan). The Plan makes recommendations on improvements for the service system, including reducing barriers to service access statewide for the growing developmental disabilities community. The Plan reflects extensive and diverse input from the community, capturing what Californians with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families want to see in employment, education, transportation, health, behavioral health, developmental services, and other programs to live and thrive in community.
...
The Committee responsible for the development of the Plan was appointed by the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS) Secretary in early 2024 and included five workgroups, all of which were made up of a diverse group of individuals with disabilities, family members, advocates, service providers, direct support professionals, and representatives from the state’s 21 regional centers. The Committee and its workgroups convened to develop the recommendations with public input through a robust year-long, statewide process. Additionally, more than 45 listening sessions were held with various diverse communities, service providers, policy experts, advocates, individuals and families.
The Plan’s recommendations

• Ensure that people are treated fairly: Addressing disparities in service delivery for underserved communities by standardizing services statewide and removing language, cultural, and location barriers.
• Allow people to make their own life choices: Providing tools and resources needed to support individuals in decision-making.  
• Get people the services they need and choose: Streamlining and simplifying processes to reduce wait times and provide timely access to critical services, as well as building stronger bridges across state service systems. 
• Ensure people are part of — and served by — a strong workforce: Investing in training, compensation, and recruitment of direct support professionals.
• Accountability and transparency should guide all systems that serve people: Equipping individuals, families, advocates, and professionals with resources and information needed to understand how the state is providing services to individuals and families.
• Data should guide the future of the developmental services system: Establishing and implementing clear metrics to assess whether needs are being met effectively and where improvements are needed. 

California provides the only life-long entitlement to services in the nation, funded with over $15 billion annually. The evolving needs of the community and access challenges highlighted the need to re-examine how the state delivers services locally to individuals with I/DD and to identify where stronger bridges can be built across employment, health, and social services systems. 

Learn more and read the full Plan HERE.

Important data:

 

RFK, Vaccines, and Measles -- Continued

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 presidential candidate 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.  Trump has directed him to investigate autism.  In turn, RFK gave that task to David Geier -- a notorious antivaxxer who does not have a medical or graduate degree.

 Christina JewettEmily Baumgaertner Nunn and Sheryl Gay Stolberg at NYT:

David Geier’s new government role has stunned public health experts, who had already expressed concerns about Mr. Kennedy’s decisions to cancel a long-held vaccine meeting and to cut grants focused on understanding vaccine hesitancy.

In addition, David Geier’s involvement in government research heightens their fears that vaccine confidence could be further eroded, especially after Mr. Kennedy’s recent embrace of questionable alternative treatments for measles during the sprawling outbreak in Texas.

“If we increase vaccine hesitancy and immunization rates go down further, we will see more vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks,” said Dr. Christopher Beyrer, director of the Duke Global Health Institute. “That’s how it works.”

Several experts said that appointing David Geier to work on a study of vaccine safety preordains the outcome — like having a basketball referee show up in one team’s jersey.

...

The Senate confirmed Mr. Kennedy largely because he won over the chairman of the Senate health committee, Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, who is a medical doctor and strong proponent of childhood vaccines.

Mr. Cassidy has said that further research into any supposed link between vaccines and autism would be a waste of money and a distraction from studies that might shed light on the “true reason” for the rise in autism rates.

On Thursday, Mr. Cassidy said he wanted confirmation of David Geier’s role, aside from news reports. He mentioned that he had breakfast with Mr. Kennedy on Thursday but said the topic did not come up.

The story appeared in The Washington Post on Tuesday night.  If Cassidy did not see it, surely his staff did.  So either his denial is disingenuous or he was too cowardly to raise the topic. 

Teddy Rosenbluth at NYT:

Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by vaccine skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary.

Parents in Gaines County, Texas, the center of a raging measles outbreak, have increasingly turned to supplements and unproven treatments to protect their children, many of whom are unvaccinated, against the virus.

One of those supplements is cod liver oil containing vitamin A, which Mr. Kennedy has promoted as a near miraculous cure for measles. Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage.

Trump Sends Baker with Autism Tattoo to a Hellhole in El Salvador

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

Noah Lanard and Isabela Dias at Mother Jones:

Before leaving for the United States in late 2023, Neri Alvarado Borges lived in Yaritagua, a small city in north central Venezuela. His father is a farmer and his mother supports his 15-year-old brother, Nelyerson, who has autism.

Alvarado’s older sister, María, stressed in a call from Venezuela that her brother has no connection to Tren de Aragua. She said her brother was deeply devoted to helping Nelyerson—explaining that one of his three tattoos is an autism awareness ribbon with his brother’s name on it and that he used to teach swimming classes for children with developmental disabilities. “Anyone who’s talked to Neri for even an hour can tell you what a great person he is. Truly, as a family, we are completely devastated to see him going through something so unjust—especially knowing that he’s never done anything wrong,” María said. “He’s someone who, as they say, wouldn’t even hurt a fly.”

Still, Alvarado was detained by ICE outside his apartment in early February and brought in for questioning, Juan Enrique Hernández, the owner of two Venezuelan bakeries in the Dallas area and Alvarado’s boss, told Mother Jones. One day later, Hernández went to see him in detention and asked him to explain what had happened. Alvarado told Hernández that an ICE agent had asked him if he knew why he had been picked up; Alvarado said that he did not. “Well, you’re here because of your tattoos,” the ICE agent replied, according to Hernández. “We’re finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos.”

The agent then asked Alvarado to explain his tattoos and for permission to review his phone for any evidence of gang activity. “You’re clean,” the ICE officer told Alvarado after he complied, according to both Hernández and María Alvarado. “I’m going to put down here that you have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua.”

For reasons that remain unclear, Hernández said that another official in ICE’s Dallas field office decided to keep Alvarado detained. María Alvarado said her brother told her the same story at the time.

Hernández spoke to Alvarado shortly before he was sent to El Salvador. “There are 90 of us here. We all have tattoos. We were all detained for the same reasons,” he recalled Alvarado telling him. “From what they told me, we are going to be deported.” Both assumed that meant being sent back to Venezuela.

Hernández, a US citizen who moved to the United States from Venezuela nearly three decades ago, searched desperately for Alvarado when he didn’t show up in his home country that weekend. He was nearly certain that Alvarado was in El Salvador when he first spoke to Mother Jones on Thursday. “I have very few friends,” he said. “Very few friends and I have been in this country for 27 years. I let Neri into my house because he is a stand-up guy…Because you can tell when someone is good or bad.” Later that day, on Alvarado’s 25th birthday, Hernández got confirmation that his friend was in El Salvador when CBS News published a list of the 238 people now at CECOT.

A centerpiece of Bukele’s brutal anti-gang crackdown, CECOT is known for due process violations and extreme confinement conditions. Last year, CNN obtained rare access to the remote prison, which can hold up to 40,000 people. The network found prisoners living in crowded cells with metal beds that had no mattresses or sheets, an open toilet, and a cement basin. Visitation and time outdoors are not allowed. A photographer who was allowed into the prison as the Venezuelans arrived earlier this month wrote for Time magazine that he witnessed them being beaten, humiliated, and stripped naked.

RFK Picks Antivax Kook to Study Vaccines and Autism

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 presidential candidate 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.  Trump has directed him to investigate autism.

RFK has reportedly picked David Geier to lead the study. Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine:

Well, just as Trump found the worst possible person to head HHS, RFK Jr has apparently found the worst possible person to head such a study – David Geier.

David Geier is not a doctor or a scientist (and in fact was charged with practicing medicine without a license). He often works with his father Mark Geier, who is a doctor. The pair have a history of publishing horrible fatally flawed studies of vaccines. They are the kings of the “dumpster divers”. They have also promoted dubious treatments for their fake causation.

The choice of Geier to analyze the data in a new study looking for a link between vaccines and autism makes it perfectly clear what RFK Jr. goal is in pushing for such a study. It is not to build or shore up the consensus (which doesn’t need shoring up). It is not to gather data that is higher quality or more reliable than existing data. If that were the goal then you would tap someone who has extreme qualifications, who could assemble a team of the best and brightest, and whose objectivity is beyond question.

Tapping David Geier tells us everything we need to know – this is a hit job. In my opinion, Geier has zero credibility in the scientific community due to his long history of crankery in this area. He is not qualified as is evidenced by a long history of shoddy science and discredited conclusions.

This blog has mentioned Geier before. 

The Maryland Board of Physicians concluded that David Geier violated Md. Code (1981, 2014 Repl. Vol.) § 14-601 of the Health Occupations Article by practicing medicine without a license.   Courts upheld the decision.

Physicians Are Poorly Trained to Deal with Autism

The Politics of Autism discusses health care, and explains that autism services can be complicated, creating difficulties for autistic people and their families.  Sometimes medical professionals lack sufficient training in ASD.

Cassie Shortsleeve at Medscape:

Despite the need for specialized training, no accreditation standards currently mandate autism education in medical school curricula. A small survey published last year found that only 16% of medical students had received formal training in neurodivergence; 97% expressed a desire for more.Maura Sullivan

Too often, medical students graduate with little education and understanding of proper care for people with autism, explains Maura Sullivan, CEO of The Arc of Massachusetts; it’s a gap that contributes to medical access issues for patients with autism, an increase in health disparities, and more.

...“A little over half of schools have at least some elements of disability education, but it’s not necessarily autism education,” [Dr. Dorothy] Tolchin said....
...
Research in BMJ Open found that only 25% of primary healthcare providers reported high confidence in communicating with adult patients with autism or identifying and making necessary accommodations.


When physicians in training don’t receive adequate education about caring for patients with autism, there’s a wide range of consequences.

For one, there are access issues for patients. In a survey of 714 US physicians, only 40% felt equipped to treat patients with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. “Because physicians don’t feel competent, they are not willing to treat,” Sullivan said. “These attitudes can lead to fear or concerns around providing care for these patients.”

Autism, Vaccines, and State Legislatures

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.

Peter Hotez, " It won’t end with COVID: Countering the next phase of American antivaccine activism 2025–2029," PLOS Global Public Health

Antivaccine sentiments have been expressed throughout American history. However, in this century, the antivaccine movement gained momentum around false claims that vaccines cause autism in the 2000s, followed by “health freedom” protests versus childhood immunization mandates in schools in the 2010s [1]. Starting in 2020 with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, health freedom extended to adult immunizations and became a signature feature of political activism on the far-right. This politically charged movement organized and convinced countless Americans to shun COVID-19 immunizations in 2021–22 resulting in an estimated 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 among the unvaccinated U.S. population. Antivaccine activism became a major lethal force in America.
...
In the U.S. most childhood immunization policies are set by state legislatures, with a primary goal to maintain high levels of coverage (90–95%) in schools and prevent breakthrough outbreaks [15]. There are fears that particularly in states where partisan leanings are strong and COVID-19 immunization rates are inadequate, there will be continued declines in childhood immunizations. Therefore, statewide vaccine coalitions and partnerships urgently need help to prevent the passage of onerous legislation that could for example ban pediatric COVID-19 immunizations, require pediatricians to read the full list of excipients in vaccines prior to parental informed consent signatures, stop disease data collection, halt school vaccine mandates, or encourage alternative or unproven immunization schedules. Without question, our system of childhood immunization has been highly successful at eliminating dangerous childhood infections [9]. However, that system now faces an unprecedented political assault that could reverse many of those public health gains. Urgent action is needed to forestall the return of diseases once believed to be consigned to history.

NCSL:

All 50 states and Washington D.C. have laws requiring certain vaccines for students to attend school. Many states align their vaccine requirements with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. All states allow exemptions from school immunization requirements for children who are unable to receive vaccines for medical reasons. State laws vary regarding non-medical exemptions, for religious or personal reasons. Personal exemptions are also referred to as "philosophical exemptions" by some states.

Thirty states and Washington D.C. allow exemptions for people who have religious objections to immunizations. Thirteen states allow exemptions for either religious or personal reasons. Two states, Louisiana and Minnesota, do not specify whether the non-medical exemption must be for religious or personal reasons. Five states do not allow any type of non-medical exemption.

 

Measles Cases Keep Spreading. Heckuva Job, Bobby.

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 presidential candidate 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.  Trump has directed him to investigate autism.

Sheryl Gay StolbergTeddy Rosenbluth and Apoorva Mandavilli at NYT:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, on Saturday instructed leaders of the nonprofit he founded to take down a web page that mimicked the design of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s site but laid out a case that vaccines cause autism.

The page had been published on a site apparently registered to the nonprofit, the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. Mr. Kennedy’s action came after The New York Times inquired about the page and after news of it ricocheted across social media.

The page was taken offline Saturday evening.

...

Publication of the page was first reported on Substack by E. Rosalie Li, founder of the Information Epidemiology Lab. The nonprofit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Kennedy has for years maintained that there is a link between vaccines and autism. He held to that stance during his Senate confirmation hearings, despite extensive research debunking the theory.

Melody Schreiber at The Guardian:

More US states are reporting measles cases as the Texas outbreak expands, surpassing last year’s total, amid vaccine misinformation and hesitancy.

The Texas outbreak could take a year to get under control, one health official said – during which time it may spread to more states. Yet the parents of the six-year-old girl who died of measles in Texas have spoken against measles vaccination as misinformation continues to proliferate, including from figures such as the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

“I never thought in 2025, we would be looking at this resurgence of measles,” said Katherine Wells, director of Lubbock Public Health. “And I didn’t know it’d be in my backyard, either.”

On Thursday, several other states reported updates on measles. Ohio reported its first case of 2025 and Maryland announced two new cases. Both states have linked the cases to international travel. Alabama also announced that an unvaccinated child with measles traveled through the state, while Kansas has confirmed eight cases of measles among children this month.

Measles cases have also been confirmed in Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

...

There were 285 cases of measles reported in the US last year. So far, there have been 378 confirmed cases in the first few months of 2025.

Illegal and Foolish: Moving Special Ed to HHS

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

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.

About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.  Trump is trying to close the Department of Education.

Kalyn Belshaand and Erica Meltzer at Chalkbeat:

President Donald Trump made a brief announcement Friday morning of a policy that could upend how the nation serves its 7.5 million students with disabilities.

Offering virtually no details, Trump said he’d decided that the Department of Health and Human Services would handle students’ “special needs” instead of the Education Department.

“Rather complex,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I think that will work out very well.”

But many legal experts and advocates for children with disabilities say the president does not have the authority to move funding or oversight of special education to another agency. That would require an act of Congress, they say.

Many educators, parents, and disability rights advocates worry that the president will try to move forward anyway, and that this plan could end up stripping children with disabilities of legally required educational support and services — and sideline them in an agency that doesn’t have the expertise, staff, or training to properly serve them

...

 Multiple laws say the Education Department is responsible for overseeing and funding the education of children with disabilities.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act established the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services within the Education Department and said that it must include an Office of Special Education Programs, “which shall be the principal agency in the Department for administering and carrying out” IDEA, along with “other programs and activities concerning the education of children with disabilities.”

The law that created the Department of Education said the department must include an Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

IDEA also says the education secretary is responsible for administering IDEA grants. The most recent budget laws give control of IDEA funds to the Department of Education and say those funds can’t just be transferred to another agency.

Kayla Jimenez at USA Today:

Many states, tight on cash, are in need of the federal money that the Department of Education allocates to students with disabilities, said Daniel Pearson, executive director of a teacher-led nonprofit organization Educators for Excellence.

If funding remains the same, Pearson said he'll be watching to see if it comes with the same stipulations to spend on students with disabilities.

"There could be a world where funding is not decreased, but it could go to states as block funding so states can allocate how the money is spent," he said. "The problem is that the accountability measures are built in through the federal department."

I WARNED ABOUT THAT DANGER LAST YEAR. 

 

Disability Groups React to Trump's EO

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

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.

About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.  Trump is trying to close the Department of Education.

ASAN:

On March 20th, the Trump administration released an executive order calling on the Secretary of Education to take steps to close the Department of Education. The executive order further directs the Secretary to withhold federal funding from schools that support diversity, equity or inclusion efforts. This is an incredibly disturbing idea for the administration to put forward. ASAN condemns this executive order, as well as any further attempts to defund or dismantle the Department of Education.

The Arc:

Statement from our CEO Katy Neas on the Executive Order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. To learn more, read Katy’s op-ed in Newsweek.“Dismantling the U.S. Department of Education is more than a policy shift—it will reverse five decades of progress for students with disabilities. While the right to a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities will remain under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, states will struggle to deliver on its promise without federal technical assistance, oversight, and enforcement. Children with disabilities who do not receive appropriate education services will face greater isolation, unemployment, and poverty. We cannot afford to undo the hard-won gains of the past—we must protect the future of every student, because the strength of our society depends on it.

 American Association of People with Disabilities:

AAPD is gravely concerned about the Executive Order, severe staff cuts, and calls to reassign civil rights enforcement functions to other federal agencies that lack the personnel and expertise to take over the enforcement and oversight of vital education laws and programs.

Oversight and Enforcement:

The Department of Education has a key job in managing programs created by IDEA. This law helps about 7.5 million students with disabilities, about 15 percent of all students. The Trump administration cannot end IDEA or its funding without approval from Congress, but it could try to move the management of IDEA to a different agency. This change would drastically impact students with disabilities. No other federal agency has the knowledge needed to oversee special education and protect students’ rights to free and appropriate public education. Students with disabilities rely on federal laws daily to receive support that helps them feel safe and succeed in their education.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces IDEA and Section 504, has already lost nearly 50% of its staff. Shutting down or even reducing OCR’s staff will harm disabled students disproportionately by limiting their access to complaint investigations and enforcement litigation. OCR is one of the main paths through which disabled students can get the learning environment they deserve, and it is already backlogged with disability discrimination cases.

Trump's War on Americans with Disabilities

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

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.

About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13

Trump is going to sign an executive order to begin closing the Department of Education.  Shakti Belway at Teen Vogue:

Decades ago, schools legally turned away children with disabilities. Those who were admitted were often relegated to inferior classrooms. It was not until the passage of the law now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975 that educational rights were federally protected for children with disabilities. Today, IDEA guarantees every child with disabilities the right to free, appropriate public education and 7.5 million students relied on IDEA-mandated services including speech therapy, individualized instruction, and classroom aides during the 2022–23 school year, the most recent year for which data is available. But these mandates don’t enforce or fund themselves. They require a federal backstop, an entity capable of ensuring that the thousands of school districts across the country comply. That entity is the Department of Education because even with protections like IDEA in place, students with disabilities often do not experience the educational equity many of their peers enjoy.

Trump has a bad record on disability more generally. 

Lauren Aratani at The Guardian:

The Department of Justice removed 11 guidelines for US businesses on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including some that deal with Covid-19 and masking and accessibility.

The ADA was signed into law in 1990 and is the key civil rights law that protects Americans with disabilities from discrimination.

Updates have already been made to the ADA.gov website to reflect the removal of the guidances. Multiple pages were removed from the ADA’s archive website, including one page that explained how retail businesses are required to have accessible features and another on customer service practices for hotel and lodging guests with disabilities.

In a webpage titled “Covid-19 and the Americans with Disabilities Act”, the justice department removed five out of seven questions that were listed on the page as recently as recently as early March

 

Report on Private Equity

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of autism service providers.  Private equity firms now own many of them.   After its purchase by Blackstone, the Center for Autism and Related Disorders went bankrupt.

Private Equity Stakeholder Project, "Private Equity in Intellectual and Developmental Disability Services."  Executive Summary:

Private equity firms have been acquiring companies providing services for people with intellectual or development disabilities (IDD). This includes residential facilities, home health and personal care, supported and independent living services, and others. These services were historically provided primarily by non-profits and religious organizations. Through recent buyouts and consolidation, several large private equity owned companies have emerged with tens of thousands of employees at numerous locations across the United States. In some cases, these companies have achieved regional market concentration obscured by complex ownership structures and disparate branding. Case studies in this report illustrate the risks that the private equity business model poses to IDD providers and the people they serve, including:

• Sevita (Centerbridge Partners, Vistria Group)
• Help at Home (Centerbridge Partners, Vistria Group) \
• Broadstep Behavioral Health (Bain Capital)
• Texas Medicaid HCBS provider landscape 
• Advoserv/Bellwether Behavioral Health (GI Partners, Wellspring Capital)

...

 PE Cost-Cutting Tactics & Impacts 

• Reducing staffing 
• Failing to provide adequate training 
• Underpaying employees, resulting in high-turnover and understaffing 
• Failing to hire employees with adequate licensing (which can be more costly) 
• Cutting services (e.g., therapy or educational services) 
• Failing to maintain facilities, leading to unsafe or unsanitary living conditions

Report on the Need for Police Training

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss interactions between police and autistic people.  When cops encounter autistic people, they may not respond in the same way as NT people, and things can get out of hand. Among other things, they may misinterpret autistic behavior as aggressive or defiant. Training could help.

At the PBS NewsHour, Judy Woodruff reports on why police still lack training to effectively respond to people with disabilities.  The report starts with the story of Eric Parsa, an autistic youth died in 2020 at the hands of sheriff’s deputies in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

 

Full transcript here.

California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has a publication titled A FIRST RESPONDER’S GUIDEvFOR PERSONS WITH MENTAL ILLNESSvOR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY