President Trump said Thursday that autism must not occur naturally, citing figures inflating the spike in autism and suggesting the administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission could provide answers.
“When you hear 10,000, it was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 31 for autism, I think that’s just a terrible thing. It has to be something on the outside, has to be artificially induced, has to be,” Trump said at a MAHA Commission event. “And we will not allow our public health system to be captured by the very industries it’s supposed to oversee. So we’re demanding the answers, the public is demanding the answers and that’s why we’re here.”
He noted that the administration is phasing out eight of the most common artificial food dyes, after the Food and Drug Administration announced actions last month to phase out the use of petroleum-based food dyes in U.S. food products, citing concerns over potential health impacts on children.
The MAHA Commission event unveiled the group’s new report, which pointed to four key factors it says are hurting U.S. children: ultraprocessed foods, environmental chemicals, digital behavior and “overmedicalization.” The report identifies pesticides and other chemicals as potentially having harmful health impacts, but it stops short of recommending actions to limit them.
At the event, the president was sitting beside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is a prominent vaccine skeptic and has also shared his debunked theories about a link between autism and vaccines.
Ahead of Kennedy’s confirmation vote in the Senate, Trump also shared figures questioning the autism rate.
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
He has similarly brought up autism rates during Cabinet meetings while touting Kennedy’s work, and in December, he said he thinks there are “problems with vaccines” and has suggested his administration would investigate a debunked link between the two.
About 1 in 36 children now have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared to about 1 in 150 in 2000.
