Op-Ed: Autism and ADHD – Day of Reckoning Coming, Part 2

By James Wilson • May 10, 2025

The following Op-Ed was submitted by James Wilson. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has announced his conviction that autism – like ADHD – is not biologically based. Frequently lambasted for claiming a connection between autism and vaccines “without evidence,” Kennedy says – on a recent podcast – “The problem is that NIH (Tony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health) and CDC (Rachel Levine and Mandy Cohen’s Centers for Disease Control under Joe Biden) have blocked all the studies that would determine the environmental exposure…instead they’ve studied genes…(but) you need an environmental toxin (to account for the wide and escalating spread of the condition). And we’re going to identify it using AI and the best scientific protocols…very transparent. We’re deploying fifteen teams to look at all the potential exposures…(it) could be mold. It could be food additives. It could be pesticides. It could be vaccines. It could be ultrasound.”

Kennedy does not deny genes may play a role – providing predisposition, vulnerability, or both in some children – in the meteoric rise in autistic diagnoses. He is adamant – however – that the explosive growth in the condition cannot be explained by genetics alone, nor can it be attributed solely to improved techniques for diagnosis. (I am reminded of my personal situation with the unscrupulous clinicians who diagnosed my daughter.) All Kennedy is really insisting is that new avenues – environmental avenues – be explored because genetics may contribute to – but cannot cause – epidemics.

Epidemic it must surely be, by almost any definition. In 1980 autism was found in 1 child of 2500. As the nineties waned it was spotted in between 2 and 7 – depending on criteria – of every 1000 children, constituting a tenfold-plus increase. By 2014 the autism spectrum was found in 1 of 68, and today the diagnosed rate is 1 in 31. Such an astronomical growth rate demands an explanation, and explanations are as plentiful as they are self-serving for the professionals who make a living treating it.

A surf across the internet turned up 10 popular reasons for the increase. Of that total, “Diagnosis has risen because of greater public and professional awareness,” showed the most logic. It stands to reason that increased awareness will generate identification of cases not previously noticed. Yet there is no way to stretch logic far enough to imagine that increased visibility accounts for the leap from 1 in 2500 to 1 in 31 over less than half a century.

Credibility drops off a cliff for 8 of the other 9 popular props. Broadened diagnostic criteria is an answer looking for a problem, as are changes in reporting practices, and cultural shifts. (All three of these factors are moving the goal posts, albeit in these cases the goal is made easier to achieve rather than more difficult.) Improved access to services is an incentive for professionals to ensure their clinics are filled, as it was for the clinicians who exploited my daughter. The same can be said for increased screening as a cause of more children being diagnosed. Variability in data, or in screening devices, proves only that the methods currently in use are unreliable. Genetic research – as Secretary Kennedy notes above – can identify predispositions or vulnerabilities (they are not synonymous) but they cannot be causing exponential increases unless their activity is colliding with either novel or escalating environmental factors. And ongoing research may provide analytical explanations, but can never offer causal explanations, unless we worship at the altar of circular reasoning.

We are left with the environmental hypothesis Kennedy passionately wishes to pursue, and Big Pharma and its acolytes desperately seek to quash. A significant voice is that of Kristin Roth, Chief Marketing Officer – that’s right, Chief Marketing Officer – for the Autism Society of America. Roth describes Kennedy’s views on environmental toxins as a research priority to be “incredibly misleading.” She declares his commitment to finding a definitive cause for Autism Spectrum Disorder is harmful to “the autism community.” She goes on to say, “While more research is needed, there has been no discussion about actually serving this community to be better supported, included, and to have services that reflect the diversity across the spectrum.” One might almost imagine there is paranoia in this “community” about what might be lost if we focus resources on logically promising projects instead of throwing money at any practitioner who has a new idea for some research and experimentation. Marketing trumps science? It appears so.

Let me be clear. There is a real condition called autism, just as there is a real condition called Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Some who manifest these conditions are superstars, like Babe Ruth or Beethoven – both of whom are reputed to be ADHD persons who made good because of their peculiar ways of processing information rather than despite them. Others more dramatically challenged by their particularities could use a helping hand. Yet persons of occidental background – us – consume half the psych meds in the world, and the problem keeps growing.

Do we want to advance beyond the problem, or wallow in it? The answer may depend on whether “we” is the public – who fund services – or the practitioners who are paid handsomely to provide them.

I work with ADHD and autistic kids. I want to see these kids become as productive and as pacific as they can possibly be, from whatever starting point they must proceed. Yet I have seen enough dishonesty and weaponization of their plight – from professionals and family members alike – to discover that guaranteeing employment for people like Kristin Roth – or the incompetent clinicians who diagnosed my daughter – is diverting the spotlight from kids in need. I say encourage Kennedy to seek truth wherever authentic science leads him.

And I warn the Faucis, the Roths and other opportunists: The goal is truth, not better support, inclusion, and profit. For charlatans the day of reckoning is coming.

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, Kingdom in Pursuit, and his first novel, Generation – available at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, or at praynorthstate@gmail.com