HJNO Nov/Dec 2025

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  NOV / DEC 2025 15 President Donald Trump Hello everyone. Thank you very much. So. I’ve been wait- ing for this meeting for 20 years actually, and it’s not that everything’s 100% under- stood or known, but I think we’ve made a lot of strides. I wish it was done a long time ago. Today we’re delighted to be joined by America’s top medical and public health professionals as we announce historic steps to confront the crisis of autism. Horrible, horrible crisis. I want to thank the man who brought this issue to the forefront of American politics along with me, and we actually met in my office. Is it like 20 years ago, Bobby? It was probably 20 years ago in New York. I was a developer, as you probably heard. And I always had very strong feelings about autism and how it happened and where it came from. And he and I . . . I don’t know, the word got out, and I wouldn’t say that peo- ple were very understanding of where we were, but it’s turning out that we understood a lot more than a lot of people who studied it, we think. And I say “we think” because I don’t think they were really letting the pub- lic know what they knew. Thanks as well to the director of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Jay Bhat- tacharya, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary. These are great people. Adminis- trator of the Centers for Medicine and Med- icaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Acting Assistant Secretary of HHS, Dr. Dorothy Fink. So, thank you all. Thank you, Dorothy, very much. The meteoric rise in autism is among the most alarming public health developments in history. There’s never been anything like this. Just a few decades ago, one in 10,000 children had autism, so that’s not a long time. And I’ve always heard they say a few, but I think it’s a lot less time than that. It used to be one in 20,000, then one in 10,000, and I would say that’s probably 18 years ago. And now it’s one in 31. But in some areas it’s much worse than that, if you can believe it. One in 31. And I gave numbers yesterday for boys; it’s one in 12. I was told that’s in Cali- fornia, where they have, for some reason, a more severe problem. But whether it’s one in 12 or one in 31, can you imagine? That’s down from one in 20,000 and one in 10,000. And now we’re at the level of one in 12 in some cases for boys. One in 31 overall. So since 2000, autism rates have surged by muchmore than 400%. Instead of attack- ing those who ask questions, everyone should be grateful for those who are try- ing to get the answers to this complex sit- uation. And the first day, all of these great doctors behind me were there. I told them, “This is what we got to . . . We have to find out.” Because when you go from 20,000 to 10,000 and then you go to 12, you know there’s something artificial. They’re taking something. And by the way, I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don’t take vaccines and don’t take any pills that have no autism. That have no autism. Does that tell you something? That’s cur- rently. Is that a correct statement, by the way? HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. There are some studies that suggest that. Yeah, with the Amish, for example. President Trump The Amish, yeah, virtually I heard none. See, Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says, and he should, but I’m not so careful with what I say. But you have certain groups, the Amish as an example; they have essentially no autism. Editor’s Note: We know you’re fielding a surge of questions about autism — its rates, causes, and the latest claims tying it to vaccines, Tylenol, and now, circumcision. In recent months we’ve witnessed a cascade of public health resignations and firings, congressional hearings about those departures, and — on September 22 — a White House press event in which top U.S. health officials stood by as President Donald Trump offered guidance that many clinicians view as dangerous, and cast doctors and institutions as the problem. That press conference was followed by a Cabinet meeting on October 9, where the president doubled down on his recommendation that pregnant women not take Tylenol and that babies not be given Tylenol. His exhortation was followed by this remark from Kennedy: “There are two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it’s highly likely because they’re given Tylenol.” Mic drop. Due to space, we’re publishing only the remarks of President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the brief Q&A that concluded the September 22 press event, which includes responses from Martin Makary, MD, commissioner of Food and Drugs at the FDA, and Mehmet Oz, MD, administrator of CMS. Some officials on stage spoke more cautiously — perhaps constrained by that small, stubborn guardrail we call the scientific method — while the administration’s “new science vs. orthodoxy” frame recast long-running epidemiology and environmental health as “revelation.” We’re printing the words as they were spoken because you’ll be answering for them in exam rooms for years. Healthcare Journal of NewOrleans exists to analyze healthcare to optimize the health of our citizens. Comments are welcome to editor@healthcarejournalno.com .