The Trump administration’s approach to autism is tangled up with ableism, eugenics, and pronatalism Eliminating neurodiversity is a dangerous goal

https://www.statnews.com/2025/10/03/autism-tylenol-rfk-jr-trump-ableism-eugenics-pronatalism/ Trump administration’s autism rhetoric is reviving eugenic thinking Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s characterization of autism as an epidemic in need of immediate attention is not just factually wrong, writes Shoumita Dasgupta, a professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. It also dehumanizes autistic people in ways that echo the eugenic policies of the early 20th century. “The Trump administration is reviving eugenic thinking,” Dasgupta writes, by restricting acetaminophen use during pregnancy, withholding vaccines from children, and identifying and eliminating the genetic causes of autism. “This problematic framing of autistic people as problems to be solved … takes a very unidimensional view on autism or other related identities, focusing exclusively on deficit,” she writes. Read more about the echoes of the past in the present here.