If they had actually discovered a cause of autism, or even substantially advanced research in that area they would have announced it right away, rather than engaging in this hype cycle bs like they are trying to defraud a venture capitalist.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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More to the point, we already know the cause of autism; genetics. This isn't new, it's not some shocking discovery, it's been known about for ages. Most of the research at this point is focused on the interconnections between autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dysphraxia, which all show a high propensity for genetic clustering; basically if one person in a family has one of them, the odds of the others being present in the same or other members shoots up massively. That's really interesting and suggests they might all just be different manifestations of the same underlying genetic condition.
The whole notion that autism has a "cause" is just anti-vaxxer nonsense concocted by a fraud doctor (that's not an accusation, it's a fact; he was stripped of his medical license after it was shown that his "research" was a sham, and that he literally tortured innocent children to concoct his fake results) feeding on the insecurities of parents who want someone to blame for their child being different rather than just accepting that sometimes that's just how people do be.
It's so obvious just looking at my family. We're successful because of the neurodivergence more than anything.
But I always have to remind people, there is a darker reason behind the conservative outcry against autism though. We do not respect authority on the basis of authority alone. There has to be a valid reason. Holding a gun to my head probably won't make me do what you demand, and if it does, you'll shoot me anyway because I'll be slow and complain the whole time vowing to take the steps to make you as miserable as you are making me.
For whatever reason, they cannot comprehend it. They lobotomized people over it. They executed people over it. They sterilized, they institutionalized. Everything for us has to have an answer to "why." And it deeply offends them.
Ain't that the fucking truth.
In a weird way autism may have partly spared me from a lot of mental trauma and issues. Growing up I went through a lot of things that tends to people having a lot of self doubt, anxiety, people pleasing tendencies, etc. I knew from a very young age though (maybe not as concretely as I do now) that what was happening to me wasn't my fault. Like sure I knew I was a kid and that certain things about me were difficult, but it was very clear to me when the things adults did made no sense or were hypocritical. That's not to say I didn't end up with other issues like poor social skills, but that still seems a lot better than the previously mentioned options.
Also, I'm still wanting to know when I get all the taxes I paid back since we apparently aren't ever supposed to be paying taxes.
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They announced they'd be announcing this last spring. I'm just going to copypasta what I wrote on my Facebook at the time, because I was pretty happy with it to be honest
Humor me for a minute. Let's pretend that HHS promised the cause of type I diabetes by September. This has been researched for years, and suddenly they're going to have the cause pinpointed? And without knowing what that cause is (much less how or even if it could be prevented) they're also promising to say how it could be prevented. Seems kinda unrealistic at best, yeah?
Now let's go back to what's actually being attempted: "finding" the cause of autism. Same thing, except it's being lead by a guy who has been drinking the conspiracy-flavored Kool Aid for years. You would have a hard time convincing me that 1) after years of research, they will have a definitive and final cause in about 6 months, 2) this will be directed with the neutrality needed for proper research, and 3) of all the many many diseases we have in this country, autism just so happens to be the one that needs that immediate attention.
This guy is a professional moron, his father would be appalled
NGL I'm morbidly curious how insane the supposed causes will be.
I'm guessing processed foods, vaccines, and a sprinkle of whatever makes the kids trans. But good news! Drinking bear blood can cure it!
/s
What about whale juice?
So long as it's fresh squeezed. You can really only get that in coastal areas. The stuff you get inland has lost its potency.
Is it okay if you get it from a whale head that you let marinate on your car roof for a bit?
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Who you gonna trust? Scientists who have researched the problem for their whole professional lives, or Maggot Brain?
Don’t call him that, please. Stick with worm brain or something else, anything else, I beg you.
Please don’t sully the title of both a fantastic album and the greatest guitar solo ever put to recording.
Don’t let these people soil yet another thing in this life.
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Imagine an ignorant like RFK Jr telling the world for the first time the cause of autism 🤯
Change the word "reveal" to "guess at".
It was me, I did it. I caused autism.
I'm ready to accept blame for my acts.
But I stand by what I did.
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I guarantee that they bring up “woke”
During the Cabinet meeting, Kennedy pointed to his oft-repeated evidence of environmental factors contributing to autism rates, noting how diagnosis rates have significantly jumped since the 1970s.
Lol yeah no shit. Medicine has improved a lot since the 70s. We can more easily diagnose the behaviour, so naturally the number of case going to go up.
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looks at the CDC
Suuuuuuuure you will.
I'm placing my bet they claim something like "testing for autism causing autism"... they'll ban the tests. Problem "solved"!
Aside from politics, do scientists actually know what causes autism? Sorry if this question is ignorant, but I have no clue about that.
There are many theories, but nothing really replicable. Genetics definitely play a role, and air pollution is implicated pretty heavily, but we don't have a "do this and you get autism" yet. There could be more than one cause, too - biology is messy.
It's a complex genetic disorder, where many genes influence an outcome that generates a spectrum of disease. While at one end of the spectrum it can be debilitating at the other end it produces some of the best minds in STEM. In other words, there is an evolutionary advantage in humans to have autism in the population.
This is a very complex genetic disorder from birth. There is definitely is not an environmental cause. By try explaining this to a guy that swims in sewage.
We know it's HEAVILY influence by genetics, but there seems to be some other component as well. That unknown piece, from what I understand, has not been discovered.
In identical twins (same DNA,) If one twin has ASD, the other only has it 96% of the time. If it was purely genetic, this should be 100%.
Not true, that's called twin discordance. It's very common. While they were born with the same DNA sequence, every person develops slightly differently and has a different epigenetic profile. The concept that twins are identical when developed was outdated about 20 years ago.
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I read a thing the other day that acetaminophen during pregnancy is now suspected as a cause.
It inhibits cell division and is now considered harmful to pregnancy and conception.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40819833/
But there’s also a recent finding suggesting it doesn’t
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38592388/
I hadn’t seen that second result before writing this comment
It's also worth noting that acetaminophen is pretty much the ONLY OTC painkiller you're allowed to take while pregnant (other than baby aspirin as a preventative if you're high risk for pre-eclampsia), so I strongly suspect a sizeable majority of people end up using it at least once during pregnancy. It's common enough that I'd imagine separating correlation from causation on that one might be especially difficult.
In all likelihood the root cause of ASD is multifactoral and appears to be at least partially genetic.
It's also used to treat things that have also shown potential links to ASD, like certain viral infections.
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They are going to blame immigrants.
why blame immigrants when you can blame trans immigrants
Pregnancy, final answer.
people who announce what they're gonna announce don't have sh to say.
This is exactly how science normally works. "We've figured out something extremely important, but we aren't going to make it available for a month, so we can build up suspense."
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