So I’ve been waiting for this meeting for twenty years, actually. And it’s not that everything’s a hundred percent understood 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 twenty years ago, Bobby? It’s probably twenty 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 people 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 public know what they knew.
There’s never been anything like this. Just a few decades ago, one in ten thousand children had autism. So that’s not a long time. And I’ve always heard, you know, they say a few, but I think it’s a lot less time than that. It used to be one in twenty thousand, then one in ten thousand. And I would say that’s probably eighteen years ago. And now it’s one in thirty-one. But in some areas, it’s much worse than that, if you can believe it. One in thirty-one. And I gave numbers yesterday for boys. It’s one in twelve. I was told that’s in California, where they have, for some reason, a more severe problem. But whether it’s one in twelve or one in thirty-one, can you imagine? That’s down from one in twenty thousand, then one in ten thousand. And now we’re at the level of one in twelve, in some cases, for boys. One in thirty-one overall.
So since 2000, autism rates have surged by much more than four hundred percent. Instead of attacking those who ask questions, everyone should be grateful for those who are trying to get the answers to this complex situation. 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 twenty thousand to ten thousand, and then you go to twelve, 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 currently—
[TURNS TO RFK, JR.] Is that a correct statement, by the way?
RFK JR.: There are some studies that suggest that, yeah, with the Amish, for example.
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.
First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of aceta—well, let’s see how we say that… Acetam—enophin. Acetaminophen. Is that okay? Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol. Can be associated with a very increased risk of autism. So taking Tylenol is not good. I’ll say it, it’s not good.
For this reason, they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary. That’s, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever, that you feel you can’t tough it out, you can’t do it. I guess there’s that. It’s a small number of cases, I think. But if you can’t tough it out, if you can’t do it, that’s what you’re going to have to do. You’ll take a Tylenol, but it’ll be very sparingly. It can be something that’s very dangerous to the woman’s health. In other words, a fever that’s very, very dangerous and ideally a doctor’s decision.
Because I think you shouldn’t take it. And you shouldn’t take it during the entire pregnancy. They may tell you that toward the end of the pregnancy, you shouldn’t take it during the entire. And you shouldn’t give the child the Tylenol every time he goes. He’s born, he goes and has a shot. You shouldn’t give a Tylenol to that child. All pregnant women should talk to their doctors for more information about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant. So ideally, you don’t take it at all. But if you have to, if you can’t tough it out, if there’s a problem, you’re going to end up doing it.
The other thing that I can tell you that I’ll say that they will maybe say at a little bit later date. But I think when you go for the shot, you do it over a five-time period. Take it over five times or four times. But you take it in smaller doses. And you spread it out over a period of years. And they pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies. It’s a disgrace. I don’t see it. I don’t, I think it has, I think it’s very bad. They’re pumping, it looks like they’re pumping into a horse. You have a little child, a little fragile child, and you get a vat of eighty different vaccines, I guess. Eighty different blends, and they pump it in.
So, ideally, a woman won’t take Tylenol. And on the vaccines, it would be good instead of one visit where they pump the baby, load it up with stuff, you do it over a period of four times or five times. I was, I mean, I’ve been so into this issue for so many years, just because I couldn’t understand how a thing like this could happen. And you know it’s artificially induced. It’s not like something that, when you go from all of those, you know, healthy babies to a point where, I don’t even know structurally if a country can afford it. And that’s the least of the problems, to have families destroyed over this. It’s just so, so terrible.
I also, and we’ve already done this, we want no mercury in the vaccine. We want no aluminum in the vaccine. The MMR, I think, should be taken separately. This is based on what I feel, the mumps, measles. And the three should be taken separately. And it seems to be that when you mix them, there could be a problem. So there’s no downside in taking them separately. In fact, they think it’s better. So let it be separate.
The chickenpox is already separate. Because when that got mixed in, I guess they made it four for a while, it really was bad. So they make chickenpox. Individually, they’re okay. When you mix them, something maybe happens. So there’s no downside in doing it. It’s not like, oh, if you do it, bad things. No, it’s only good. And it may not have that much of an impact, but it may have a big impact. So let those be taken separately.
And then hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B. So I would say wait till the baby is twelve years old and formed, and take hepatitis B. And I think if you do those things, it’s going to be a whole different, it’s going to be a revolution in a positive sense in the country.
The FDA will be updating the label of an existing drug to reflect potential benefits in reducing some autism symptoms. This gives hope to the many parents with autistic children that it may be possible to improve their lives. That’s one of the things that I’m very, very happy about. I mean, this was mostly going to be on how not to have the child affected. But we’ve learned some pretty good things about certain elements of genius that can be given to a baby, and the baby can get better. And in some cases, maybe substantially better. Not going to be easy, but it’d be a lot easier if it didn’t happen in the first place.
These great parents fully understand, right? They fully understand. I feel so terribly for them. I have so many friends with autistic children. It’s just, it’s a tough situation. Finally, to help reach the ultimate goal of ending the autism fever, the NIH will be announcing thirteen major grant awards from the Autism Data Science Initiatives. And to be honest with you, to me, that’s the least important. It’s not even a money thing at this point. There’s so much money, but they have to do, and they have to move quickly.
When the alternative is that nothing bad can happen, let’s do it now. I was just saying to Bobby and the group, let’s do it now. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don’t take it. Don’t take it. And if you can’t live, if your fever is so bad, you have to take one, because there’s no alternative to that.
What can you take instead? It’s actually, there’s not an alternative to that. And as you know, other of the medicines are absolutely proven bad. I mean, they’ve been proven bad with the aspirins and the Advils and others, right? And they’ve been proven bad.
And I will say there are parts of the world that don’t take Tylenol. I mean, there’s a rumor, and I don’t know if it’s so or not, that Cuba, they don’t have Tylenol, because they don’t have the money to put Tylenol. And they have virtually no autism, okay? Tell me about that one. And there are other parts of the world where they don’t have Tylenol, where they don’t have autism. That tells you a lot.
And I want to say it right now. And you know, the way I look at it, don’t take it, don’t take it. There’s no downside in not taking it. So I’d like to ask Bobby to come up and say a few words. I hope I didn’t ruin his day, but that’s the way I feel. I’ve been very strong on this subject for a long time. You know, life is common sense too. And there’s a lot of common sense in this. And I wish things like this were brought up. And this group has worked so hard on it.
But I’d like to be a little bit more, a little speedier in the process of a recommendation, because there’s no harm in going quicker. There’s absolutely no harm. At worst, there’s no harm.
