Trump president win impact on healthcare and autism

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!! ! Thank You! DJT

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which will be led by newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Fox News Digital exclusively learned.

The commission will be chaired by Kennedy and will be "tasked with investigating and addressing the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis, with an initial focus on childhood chronic diseases," the White House explained to Fox News Digital.

The commission, Fox Digital learned, will focus on four policy directives to reverse chronic disease, including providing Americans transparency on health data to "avoid conflicts of interest in all federally funded health research;" prioritizing "gold-standard research on why Americans are getting sick" in all federally-funded health research; working with farmers to ensure food is healthy, as well as affordable; and expanding health coverage and treatment options "for beneficial lifestyle changes and disease prevention."

The commission initially will focus on childhood chronic diseases, such as autism and fatty liver disease, and also investigate adult chronic diseases, such as asthma and the U.S. average life expectancy compared to other nations.

Within 100 days of the commission's founding, it is expected to publish "an assessment that summarizes what is known and what questions remain regarding the childhood chronic disease crisis, and include international comparisons." Within 180 days, it is expected to "produce a strategy, based on the findings of the assessment, to improve the health of America’s children," Fox Digital learned.

Trump, in recent months, has cited autism stats while previewing his second administration, balking at the number of children currently diagnosed compared to just 25 years ago.

"When you look at, like, autism from 25 years ago, and you look at it now, something's going on," Trump said in December ahead of his inauguration. "Think of this: 25 years ago, autism, 1 in 10,000 children. Today it's 1 in 36 children. Is something wrong? I think so, and Robert and I, we're going to figure it out."

"25 years ago, autism, 1 in 10,000 children. Today it's 1 in 36 children. Is something wrong?"

Of course it's wrong; Kanner's subjects in his famous paper, were evidently autistic, as the label was then understood, being one of those aspects of the psyche which determine our temperament and aptitudes. Since then, all consideration of personality has been shunted aside: it's no longer even tested for (*) so little wonder the category has expanded; how could it do otherwise?

(*though that's easily done, as the Chandler & Macleod on-line test demonstrated, on this site and others).

President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on chronic disease and mental health is dangerous: It groups autism and ADHD — natural, genetic neurotypes — alongside chronic diseases. This is not just inaccurate, it is harmful to millions of neurodivergent Americans fighting for acceptance and equal rights.

Autism and ADHD are not diseases. They are not illnesses. They are not a “health crisis.” They are neurodevelopmental variations, passed down through families — just like eye color.

I am neurodivergent. So is my child, my mother, my sister and my nephew. We are not sick. We do not need curing. What we need is recognition, support, and a society that doesn’t try to erase us.

This harmful framing isn’t just offensive — it’s a strategic attack on disabled people, targeting our children first.

Stripping away protections
For years, I have fought to get my daughter the support she needs in school. She is too smart to be recognized for her disabilities, yet too disabled to fit into the school environment. The system refuses to acknowledge that neurodivergent children struggle in ways that aren’t immediately visible — and now, they are making it even harder.

While Trump calls neurodivergence a “health crisis,” Republican-led states are suing to strip away protections for disabled children. Multiple states want to eliminate Section 504 protections, which ensure that kids with disabilities have rights to accommodations in school

Follow the money
Let’s be honest: They simply don’t want to spend money on kids like mine.

Those 504 plans and disability protections cost money, and rather than ensuring public schools provide equitable access, states are diverting those funds elsewhere.

In Ohio, the expansion to near-universal private school vouchers has almost entirely benefited wealthy families that were already sending their kids to private schools.

This is about funding education for the privileged while gutting public schools.

Mask, hide or be punished
I was diagnosed young. Instead of being encouraged to embrace who I was, I learned to suppress my natural instincts, reactions and behaviors.

For years, I played the part. The world received me more kindly when I wasn’t being myself.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to undo the years of conditioning that told me my natural way of existing wasn’t acceptable. For the first time in my life, I feel authentically me.

I am happier now, even though the world doesn’t always accept me the way it did before. And I refuse to let my daughter grow up believing she has to do the same.

But this executive order? The lawsuits against 504 plans? The diversion of public funds to private schools?

They are telling our children exactly that: Mask. Hide. Fit in. Or be punished.

What we actually need
If the administration truly wants to address health disparities, it should support neurodivergent individuals, not pathologize us. That means:

Protecting 504 plans and disability rights
Reforming education to stop punishing neurodivergent kids for being themselves
Increasing access to neuro-affirming healthcare
Acknowledging that neurodivergence is not a crisis

Might lead to good things in the end like a re-writing of the DSMV

Its clear the status que cannot continue its just too absurd and confusing, like the two main people in the US gov Kennedy & Musk,

Musk is supposed to be Autistic, Kennedy, his partner in gov is being tasked to prevent people like him existing.

Its so dumb its actually funny thinking about it.

The old Autism label will have to go and be replaced with multiple different diagnosis according to people issues.

As an angel investor, Peter Shankman has made millions investing in startups, yet it wasn’t easy getting to the top of the ladder. He’s also a person with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and as such still bears the psychological scars of navigating a society that punishes people who aren’t neurotypical.

“Growing up, I spent my entire life being told I talked too much,” Shankman told Salon. “My middle name was ‘sit down, you're disrupting the class.’ I scraped by in school and college through the skin of my teeth, and have spent the last 25 years in therapy trying to undo the damage that constantly being told I was broken my entire childhood did to me as an adult.”

Despite starting five companies, selling three, and becoming quite successful, Shankman says “not a day goes by where I don't believe that it's all bulls**t, and I'm a complete fraud.”

While Shankman has put together a decent life for himself despite these stigmas, he is concerned that the policies being pushed by America’s newly-elected leaders will make life even harder for neurodiverse people today than it was for him growing up.

For every story of excellence in neurodiversity there are those that play into unflattering stereotypes — such as attorneys for alleged quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger considering introducing his autism into his defense. Systematic reviews in scientific journals repeatedly find that stigma against autistic people is prevalent and causes real-world harm, with one scholar concluding that policymakers who want to help neurodivergent people should start by “identifying active ingredients of interventions, measuring reliable changes in behaviors and attitudes, and targeting structural stigma.”

By contrast, President Donald Trump and his new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., are stirring controversy among disabled people through executive orders targeting supposed initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. They are also slashing social programs like Medicare and the Department of Education, which many disabled people require for health care and other important social services.

Kennedy has repeatedly mischaracterized autistic people by falsely claiming autism is caused by vaccines while attacking life-saving medications like antidepressants, insisting that instead force people with mental illness would benefit from “healing” farms.

“How dare RFK Jr. punish people for being different, instead of helping them understand that their differences are what make them better?” Shankman said. “It's the last thing we should be doing. ‘You're different, and that's wrong’ doesn't help people, doesn't help our country, and doesn't help us heal.”

According to experts who specialize in autism, ADHD and other neurodiverse conditions, the traditional, and invariably reactionary, approach to neurodiversity embraced by the administration reinforces and exacerbates pre-existing stigmas that have long made life painful for neurodivergent individuals. These stigmas are not simply harmful — they are also unscientific.

A ‘clinical’ diagnosis typically occurs when someone experiences significant difficulties functioning in environments designed for neurotypical minds,” Barach said. “Research has revealed that these neurotypes often come with distinct strengths, including exceptional pattern recognition, hyperfocus abilities, creative problem-solving, and innovative thinking.”

"It's exhausting to wear a mask all the time and be told that who you are is not enough."
By contrast, the reactionary approach to neurodivergent conditions seems destined to increase prejudices which downplay or ignore these nuances. This strategy highlights so-called “weaknesses” that (quite often) are nothing more than manifestations of societal intolerance. Dr. Monique Botha, a professor of psychology at Durham University, argued that people who advocate cutting services for neurodivergent people and removing legal protections usually doubt or deny the underlying reality of those disabilities.

“Autism and ADHD are heritable disabilities, and both communities do not pose a threat to anyone by virtue of being autistic or having ADHD,” Botha told Salon. “It is a group of people, however, who have been demonized and stigmatized, and RFK is clearly choosing to endorse some of the most reckless and negative beliefs about the group because they do not have easily recognizable disabilities. This means that it's a group where it's easier to doubt the veracity of the claims about disability, in favor of a narrative of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and ‘getting over it.’”

Botha explained that there is already extensive evidence demonstrating that by and large anti-depressants and ADHD medications are safe, that access to medication for ADHD can prevent early mortality for diagnosed patients and that vaccines do not cause autism. In fact, molecular biologists believe that neurodivergent conditions arise due to a combination of heritable and environmental factors.

“We are coming to terms with the wide variation amongst autistic people, the fact that more than white boys can be autistic,” Botha said. “To pretend that we've been held back by a lack of funding on biological research ignores the reality of the vast majority going on it (as per actual research on this topic) and it ignores that autistic people and their families couldn't often care about the biology of it all — they want access to evidence-based care and support, both of which are drastically underfunded.”

In addition to studying autism and ADHD, Barach has ADHD and Botha has both conditions. Each of them reflected on how the new government’s philosophy toward neurodiversity intersects with their own lived experiences.

“My own research tackles the disparities facing neurodivergent people,” Botha told Salon. “Both disabilities run in my family. I've worked with teams in the U.S. and attend a big autism conference that is most years, held in the U.S.” Instead of being able to tout her country as a forerunner in research or practice, the anti-science resurgence has forced Botha to ask whether it is even safe to attend American conferences.

“Personally, as someone who is both a researcher, and neurodivergent, I also wonder about it,” Botha said. She observed that autistic people are an easy group to stigmatize, and “are more likely to have negative judgments made about them based on small interactions.”

Barach, who has a PhD in psychology, told Salon that the revival of anti-ADHD stigmas has caused her and other patients with ADHD to feel as if they must “mask” their behavior in public.

“Myself and my clients have often walked through life hiding and masking our neurodivergence in order to fit in and avoid exclusion and judgment,” Barach said. “It's exhausting to wear a mask all the time and be told that who you are is not enough — that you need to fundamentally change in order to be accepted. While it's understandable to make modifications to behavior to promote success, it's entirely different when we're asking people to modify their entire being and self, instead of offering environmental accommodations in conjunction with behavioral adaptations.”

Becca Lory Hector, an autistic speaker and researcher and author of "Always Bring Your Sunglasses,” told Salon that her work bringing belonging and equality to the lives of neurodivergent individuals has been directly undermined by Kennedy’s efforts.

I’ve seen how rhetoric like this leads to harmful policies, whether in education, employment, or healthcare, where support is cut, services are denied, and Autistic people are further marginalized,” Hector said. “His statement isn't just offensive; it's a call to action for those of us fighting for the right to exist without being treated as a threat.”

Sol Smith coaches people with both autism and ADHD, running support groups for them and is the author of the upcoming book “Autistic’s Guide to Self- Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult.” He said that the current culture of contempt for autistic individuals directly and negatively impacts their lives.

“My whole job is to increase the public’s education about autism and ADHD, to reduce stigma, and to help autistics and ADHDers find themselves in this society,” Smith said. “How ADHDers and autistics feel about themselves is downright awful; they’ve lost touch with themselves as they’ve tried to hide in a society not made for them. They struggle with the very social constructs that define our culture — and that’s without politicians suggesting they be wiped out as some kind of internal threat.”

I’ve seen how rhetoric like this leads to harmful policies, whether in education, employment, or healthcare, where support is cut, services are denied, and Autistic people are further marginalized,” Hector said. “His statement isn't just offensive; it's a call to action for those of us fighting for the right to exist without being treated as a threat.”

Sol Smith coaches people with both autism and ADHD, running support groups for them and is the author of the upcoming book “Autistic’s Guide to Self- Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult.” He said that the current culture of contempt for autistic individuals directly and negatively impacts their lives.

“My whole job is to increase the public’s education about autism and ADHD, to reduce stigma, and to help autistics and ADHDers find themselves in this society,” Smith said. “How ADHDers and autistics feel about themselves is downright awful; they’ve lost touch with themselves as they’ve tried to hide in a society not made for them. They struggle with the very social constructs that define our culture — and that’s without politicians suggesting they be wiped out as some kind of internal threat.”

If America wants to help its neurodivergent citizens, advocates like Smith believe they need to accept that the disabilities are social, not medical — that is, “we are disabled by our social climate and the expectations that we will think and work in the same ways that neurotypicals do.”

Instead of encouraging society to broaden its perspective about acceptable behavior, Smith believes the current trend is to move in the opposite direction, with “people kindling our ancient fears is a powerful political move that distracts us from real social reforms that we should be addressing.”

This is in stark contrast to the RFK Jr. approach.

“Why the hell is a non-doctor unilaterally deciding to rip this lifeline away from people who rely on it to thrive?” Shankman asked. “It’s mind-boggling, reckless and if enacted, will devastate countless lives — many of whom will never fully recover.”

“Scientific evidence shows these conditions are not ‘threats’ but rather neurological differences that can lead to positive outcomes when given appropriate support,”

Leaving vaccines aside these people like Matthew Rozsa just make up stuff to fit a narrative:-

WP has recently passed its 20th anniversary and managed to avoid degrading into an unsafe place.
It will never become a Reddit, or a Twitter, or any number of other rabid echo chambers.

3) I really don't think it matters which administration is in place for autism to have a strong critical look taken at it. If the Trump administration takes a critical look and makes proclamations, that will trigger critics on the other side to make their own investigations. We will end up with balanced information from both sides.

The problem is the current administration would rather just talk about it and not fund research.
The other side doesn't have the funds to do critical research.
So nothing gets done besides talk to stir things up.

The current administration has cut NOAA funding, so it will be harder to collect and obtain weather data for climate research. It may be possible that the current administration will cut funding for data collection, so we will know less but it is may be hard to figure out what has gone missing if it is already gone and former workers are reluctant to speak out for fear of retribution.