The United States government will identify the cause of autism by September this year, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday.
“At your direction, we are going to know by September. We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy said at a meeting of President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
Yeah my first thought reading the headline is “oh so we can spread it to more people and actually have a functioning society?”
Of course I don’t mean to offend those who suffer from it. But in small doses…
I am autistic and do not find that offensive at all rofl.
I often wish I could live somewhere that was some kind of safe haven, a zion for autistic people.
We can be extremely productive and creative when our boundaries are respected, but uh, when they aren’t, we either shut down or freak out.
I guess my only quibble would be… I do not ‘suffer’ from autism any more than a gay or lesbian or trans person ‘suffers’ from … being innately different from the social norm in a way they cannot fundamentally change.
Queer folk ‘hide in the closet’, autists ‘mask’.
It is society that causes us to suffer by generally consistently refusing to listen to us, respect and understand our differences, and instead pathologizes and patronizes us as ‘sick’ or ‘ill’ in some way.
If they start trying to ‘cure’ us, that’ll be basically a kind of genocide.
Yeah it’s a fine line to walk. There are people who are non-functional, who spend their entire lives unable to take care of themselves and function.
My older sister was a genius who, every couple of years, would have mental breakdowns and need to be institutionalized until she was diagnosed in her mid-30’s. Before the diagnosis I always considered myself a milder version of her- smart but not on her level, introverted but functional. Others in my life, without knowing about her have said they think I’m on the spectrum. So that’s a round about way of saying “there’s a good chance I’m on the spectrum too, but I don’t like self-diagnosing and haven’t had enough reason to get diagnosed.”
I think the real key is giving people the freedom and technology to choose. I could envision a world where people move along the spectrum from day-to-day based on what best serves them. And I think a lot of non-autistic people would find a bit of the spectrum helpful. But that’s probably just a utopian dream.