Disability rights groups and advocates did not want Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, because he has made many ableist comments and proposed harmful disability policies in the past. He has:
- claimed there is an autism epidemic, even though increased autism rates are the result of better diagnoses
- compared increased autism rates to the Holocaust, and stated that autistic people “shatter” families
- stated that vaccines cause autism, and that autistic people’s brains are “gone”, even though this has been proven false (Kennedy’s decision to spread debunked theories like this is dangerous because it spreads distrust of vaccines that are safe and effective, and promotes harmful lies about the capability of autistic people
- proposed that certain disabled people be sent to wellness farms for treatment, where they wouldn’t have access to their phones
Since becoming the Secretary of Health and Human Services in February, Kennedy has:
- eliminated the Administration for Community Living (ACL) which supports caregivers and helps disabled people stay in the community and out of institutions
- this is very important because as recently as 2024, reports showed that disabled people have been beaten, burned, starved, and even electrically shocked in some institutions
- Under Kennedy’s leadership, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have cut crucial funding for research into cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and more
- HHS officials usually follow a policy called the Richardson Waver, which requires them to tell the public about any changes they want to make in certain policy areas, and wait for the public to comment on those changes before moving forward. This applies to programs including Medicaid, and agencies such as the NIH. Secretary Kennedy got rid of the Richardson Waver, so now he’ll be able to make more changes to Medicaid and the NIH without letting the public know until it’s too late
- the NIH is planning to create an autism registry, where they get data about autistic people from lab testing, pharmacy purchases, private insurance claims, and smart watches
- This announcement sparked fear among advocates because Nazi Germany created a registry for disabled children, and it led to the institutionalization and murder of countless children. The program was later expanded to include disabled adults
- Plans have been proposed that would involve the agency tracking autistic people
- Officials who work for Secretary Kennedy have said that they might look into registries for other chronic illnesses in the future
When discussing his executive order to close the Department of Education, President Trump said that Secretary Kennedy would now be the one in charge of protecting the rights of disabled students. This exact idea was written about in Project 2025, and now it’s starting to happen. This is not something President Trump can do on his own—Congress needs to agree to it, so advocates are hoping that legislators will not support this plan. If they do, a man who has spread lies about the disabled community and pushed dangerous disability policy forward would be in a position of power over the 7.5 million disabled children who rely on these important laws.
This article was written in plain language. Plain language is a writing style that makes information more accessible to more people, including some people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities.
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