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RFK Jr and the War on Autism · Millennial Mental Health Channel

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, I know I had like a prepared question of like,
0:04
Speaker 1: did you know anyone with autism growing up?
0:06
Speaker 2: But really I want to hear your best.
0:07
Speaker 1: RFK Junior, Welcome to MMHC, your go to mental health podcast.
0:14
Speaker 3: I'm Eddie Cooreo, a licensed professional counselor.
0:17
Speaker 1: And I'm Justin Romano, a Board certified Child and Adolescent psychiatrist.
0:21
Speaker 3: We created MMHC to give listeners evidence based information directly
0:25
Speaker 3: from professionals who work in mental health.
0:27
Speaker 1: We're not influencers, we're not trying to sell you anything.
0:30
Speaker 1: We just want to bring love, empathy, and understanding of
0:33
Speaker 1: mental health into this world.
0:34
Speaker 3: And we really think that learning about mental health should
0:36
Speaker 3: be fun, interesting, and most importantly honest.
0:40
Speaker 1: So thanks for tuning in. This is a show by
0:42
Speaker 1: two millennials, but it is intended to be for everyone.
0:45
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy the show.
0:49
Speaker 1: MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia.
0:53
Speaker 3: I Heart I'm not God. Fuck No, you can't make
0:59
Speaker 3: me do that's a fool plead the fifth I'll go
1:04
Speaker 3: back to your I'll go to your Oh wow, I'm
1:08
Speaker 3: throwing Okay, Okay, we're okay. In terms of your presard question,
1:15
Speaker 3: did I know anyone with autism growing up. That's that's
1:17
Speaker 3: a great question. I've been thinking about this today probably,
1:21
Speaker 3: But did I know it at the time. No, And
1:24
Speaker 3: I think that's a perfect seguae to today we're talking
1:27
Speaker 3: about autism and r f K and why are we
1:29
Speaker 3: talking about them because RFK has said a bunch of
1:32
Speaker 3: stupid shit, among other things over the last however many years,
1:36
Speaker 3: but recently he kind of had an attack on people
1:40
Speaker 3: with autism and then the diagnosis of autism.
1:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just kind of weird. It was out
1:44
Speaker 2: of left field.
1:45
Speaker 1: It's like, why is he it just he clearly didn't
1:48
Speaker 1: really seem to know much about autism. And yes, people
1:52
Speaker 1: with severe autism can have some of the deficits that
1:55
Speaker 1: he mentioned, and we'll talk about his specific quote exactly,
1:58
Speaker 1: but man, the vast people with autism do not have
2:02
Speaker 1: severe deficits and live totally in completely normal lives. Obviously,
2:06
Speaker 1: he's never seen love on the spectrum.
2:08
Speaker 3: Him saying everything that he said and everything that this
2:11
Speaker 3: new administration has said, is it just feels like common courtesy,
2:15
Speaker 3: common sense, Like a lot of these things are just
2:17
Speaker 3: out the window, and we're just kind of saying whatever
2:20
Speaker 3: because We don't think there's any consequence. We think we
2:23
Speaker 3: can they can accept their own what they think is
2:27
Speaker 3: the truth, has absolute truth. It's just so much bs
2:30
Speaker 3: out there, and it attacks on a bunch of different
2:33
Speaker 3: marginalized groups of people. It feels like constantly, we got
2:36
Speaker 3: people with disabilities being shipped on, we got people with autism,
2:39
Speaker 3: we immigrants, we got people of color just daily. So
2:43
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised at all that he went on on
2:47
Speaker 3: his ramble or whatever. Never mind, I'm not gonna say, so, yeah,
2:51
Speaker 3: let's keep going.
2:53
Speaker 1: Let's do it, because I really do like that he
2:55
Speaker 1: wants to make America healthy again, But targeting people with
2:59
Speaker 1: autism seems like the least low hanging fruit, Like it's
3:05
Speaker 1: not really gonna help much.
3:06
Speaker 2: But so we're going to talk about it.
3:08
Speaker 1: With all the news about autism, we wanted to do
3:11
Speaker 1: another episode because we did do a whole episode on
3:14
Speaker 1: autism in the past years ago. Now because we're gotten
3:16
Speaker 1: old and.
3:17
Speaker 3: We're got old, our show can almost go to kindergarten.
3:22
Speaker 2: That's true.
3:24
Speaker 1: Wow, that is kind of wild to think about. It's
3:27
Speaker 1: been a whole five years. Crazy, so, but it seems
3:32
Speaker 1: like with a lot of things in our country right now.
3:34
Speaker 1: People can't really agree on this. Like there's a whole
3:37
Speaker 1: group of people saying that we need to be studying this,
3:40
Speaker 1: we need to be looking for toxins, and there's a
3:41
Speaker 1: whole group of people saying, no, this is because we
3:46
Speaker 1: are getting better at identifying it, I diagnosing it and
3:49
Speaker 1: treating it, actually not really treating it. We don't have
3:52
Speaker 1: great treatments for it yet. So yeah, a large part
3:55
Speaker 1: of these people are on the other side, are saying
3:58
Speaker 1: that there's a big epidemic, that we need to figure
4:00
Speaker 1: this out, we need to reverse it. So even as
4:03
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist, as someone who's trained in this, someone who
4:05
Speaker 1: went to medical school, it's hard to know what's what,
4:09
Speaker 1: it's hard to know which argument is good. So we
4:12
Speaker 1: wanted to dive into this, give you guys a little
4:14
Speaker 1: bit of the scientific background. So just for the sake
4:17
Speaker 1: of being thorough, we're going to give you the official
4:20
Speaker 1: autism diagnosis per the DSM five. Who knows it might
4:24
Speaker 1: even be the d s M five tr text revision.
4:28
Speaker 1: We've simplified a little bit of the language just to
4:30
Speaker 1: make it a little bit more palatable for you listeners
4:33
Speaker 1: out there.
4:34
Speaker 3: Really, it's mainly for me.
4:35
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, thank you, Eddie. I didn't want to normalize, normalized, normalized.
4:42
Speaker 2: There we go.
4:43
Speaker 1: So the main diagnostic criteria of autism, there's two main ones.
4:49
Speaker 1: The number one is persistent deficits in social communication and
4:53
Speaker 1: social interaction. So some of the examples of this are
4:57
Speaker 1: deficits and social functioning, so like people not understanding the
5:01
Speaker 1: back and forth of conversation, so like just stopping the
5:04
Speaker 1: conversation randomly, not being able to understand other people's emotions,
5:08
Speaker 1: not engaging or initiating social interactions. Some of the deficits
5:13
Speaker 1: can be nonverbal communication, like not understanding that like eye
5:17
Speaker 1: contact's important, not understanding people's gestures in conversation, deficits in developing,
5:24
Speaker 1: maintaining and understanding relationships, for example, not really being able
5:28
Speaker 1: to make a lot of friendships. Autism itself means self focus,
5:32
Speaker 1: so you don't really you're kind of in your own
5:34
Speaker 1: little world with autism, you don't really care about making
5:36
Speaker 1: connections with other people a lot of the time. That's
5:39
Speaker 1: not for everyone, But just to kind of give you
5:41
Speaker 1: an idea of some of those main social deficits in
5:44
Speaker 1: communication and interaction.
5:47
Speaker 3: I had no idea that autism meant self focus.
5:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, auto self ism focus.
5:55
Speaker 3: God damn man, I never stop learning. Baby, let's go.
6:01
Speaker 1: I love that because it gives you such an idea
6:04
Speaker 1: of what original researchers and people were seeing of, Like, oh,
6:08
Speaker 1: this kid's kind of keeping to himself.
6:10
Speaker 2: Let's call it autoism.
6:12
Speaker 1: Why not?
6:13
Speaker 3: Wow? Okay, wow, Okay. The next diagnostic criteria, we have
6:20
Speaker 3: restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities of
6:27
Speaker 3: like repetitive motor movements. I want to say, do you
6:30
Speaker 3: feel like this falls into the category of when people
6:33
Speaker 3: have like I think the appropriate term for it is
6:36
Speaker 3: like special interests or like specific interests, like the kind
6:40
Speaker 3: of a hyper focus or hyper fixation on on certain things.
6:45
Speaker 1: I think you're right, so like it's broken down into
6:48
Speaker 1: a couple of different categories. But yes, the restricted interest
6:52
Speaker 1: is one of the main symptoms of autism.
6:55
Speaker 3: I think another piece to it is like the I
7:00
Speaker 3: want to say rigidity because that sounds so negative, but
7:02
Speaker 3: like kind of kind of a characteristic we see with
7:05
Speaker 3: people who diagnosed with autism can be like in an
7:07
Speaker 3: insistence on like sameness, not wanting to be too too
7:11
Speaker 3: flexible when it comes to like routines, like keeping those
7:14
Speaker 3: pretty pretty static, I think is pretty important for some people.
7:18
Speaker 3: We also have like highly restricted and fixated interests that
7:20
Speaker 3: are abnormal and intensity or focus and not to make
7:24
Speaker 3: like I don't like the word to abnormal as much,
7:26
Speaker 3: but it is kind of part of the diagnostic criteria.
7:29
Speaker 3: But just yeah, something that's out of outside of normal
7:33
Speaker 3: limits or expected or typical limits. One of those examples
7:36
Speaker 3: could be like an adult who's been obsessed with trains
7:38
Speaker 3: their whole life. That example gets brought up a lot,
7:41
Speaker 3: like I think on social media of like we didn't
7:44
Speaker 3: have autism back in the day. It is like, yeah,
7:46
Speaker 3: uncle Tommy just really fucking love trains. Like I don't
7:49
Speaker 3: know what to what to tell you, and not to
7:51
Speaker 3: like trivialize it too much, but yeah, I think it's
7:54
Speaker 3: the idea that autism is a brand new thing is
7:57
Speaker 3: such bs. But and then the last part of that
8:00
Speaker 3: criteria is hyper or hypo reactivity to sensory input or
8:04
Speaker 3: unusual interests. So sensory seeking and sensory avoidance are two
8:10
Speaker 3: of those parts.
8:11
Speaker 1: And I always like to give examples of the stuff
8:14
Speaker 1: I see in clinic all the time because I work
8:16
Speaker 1: with quite a bit of young people with autism with
8:18
Speaker 1: the sensory stuff, it's a lot of certain clothes we
8:22
Speaker 1: don't like, Like we can only wear certain types of
8:24
Speaker 1: clothes because tags bother us, the seams and socks bother us.
8:29
Speaker 1: Certain textures of food we just cannot do. And so
8:32
Speaker 1: there's this insistence on sameness. We like the things that
8:36
Speaker 1: we like, and we don't want to try things that
8:38
Speaker 1: are outside of that. Normal people with autism tend to
8:41
Speaker 1: really struggle with transitions. They just don't want to transition
8:45
Speaker 1: from one thing to the next. They want to keep
8:46
Speaker 1: doing what they're doing. And you know, I certainly don't
8:48
Speaker 1: blame them. And then yeah, I know we talked about
8:51
Speaker 1: trains and adults who are like obsessed with trains their
8:54
Speaker 1: whole life.
8:55
Speaker 2: But that's a big diagnostic criteria.
8:57
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people with autism, like my family
9:00
Speaker 1: that I work with, that's my general screen or question
9:02
Speaker 1: is like, you know, is your kid just really into
9:05
Speaker 1: one thing? And the parents of kids with autism are
9:08
Speaker 1: always just like, yes, he has been talking about Sonic
9:11
Speaker 1: the Hedgehog and is not interested in anything else for
9:14
Speaker 1: the past three years. It's like okay, Like most kids
9:18
Speaker 1: like they'd be into it for a little while, but
9:19
Speaker 1: they'd have other interests. But sometimes people with autism there
9:23
Speaker 1: are one thing all the time and it's hard to change.
9:26
Speaker 3: You know, another difficulty difficulty with change that sometimes people
9:30
Speaker 3: will forget about. If you look at a high school setting,
9:33
Speaker 3: your schedule changes every semester or every trimester, and we
9:37
Speaker 3: have a number of students who we have to plan
9:39
Speaker 3: for that, right, whether that's talking with teachers ahead of time,
9:42
Speaker 3: whether that's talking with the student ahead of time, we
9:45
Speaker 3: have to plan for that because that is a big thing.
9:47
Speaker 3: Sometimes there could be things that could be done through
9:49
Speaker 3: an individualized education plan, like trying to keep similar teachers
9:53
Speaker 3: or the same teacher for the same subjects. So if
9:56
Speaker 3: it's part two of algebra one, you're taken the second section,
10:00
Speaker 3: try to keep the same teacher, same thing with English,
10:03
Speaker 3: those kinds of things. You know that that does come
10:05
Speaker 3: up a good amount, and it's something I probably didn't
10:07
Speaker 3: think about a whole lot until I got into a school.
10:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, great point.
10:11
Speaker 1: So with autism there also has to be these symptoms
10:15
Speaker 1: have to cause impairment, so like changes to your life,
10:18
Speaker 1: the negative things, the symptoms cannot be better explained by
10:21
Speaker 1: something like an intellectual disability or a medical issue. There
10:25
Speaker 1: are a lot of other non diagnostic symptoms of autism,
10:29
Speaker 1: like things that go along with people and autism like
10:32
Speaker 1: typically but aren't put into the diagnosis. So like things
10:35
Speaker 1: like stacking. So a lot of times kids with autism
10:38
Speaker 1: will like stack their toys by color or by size.
10:41
Speaker 3: They kind of.
10:42
Speaker 1: Line them all up and they'll do it over and
10:43
Speaker 1: over and over again. So just like take everything down,
10:46
Speaker 1: put them all, stack them all up in a row again.
10:48
Speaker 1: Toe walking is a big one. Rocking back and forth
10:51
Speaker 1: is a big one.
10:52
Speaker 3: Something else to consider. We didn't even talk about this.
10:55
Speaker 3: The name of the diagnosis has changed over the years,
10:58
Speaker 3: right like it was, it was different before they had
11:01
Speaker 3: like the like Asperger's was included previously, but now we've
11:05
Speaker 3: kind of gone away from that. But something that I
11:07
Speaker 3: think was different with the DSM five and continued with
11:10
Speaker 3: the DSM five tr is it's called autism spectrum disorder
11:14
Speaker 3: now kind of really highlighting that it's it's not just
11:17
Speaker 3: a one size fits all, it's it's a spectrum. Something
11:21
Speaker 3: that I think RFK completely didn't pay attention to or
11:25
Speaker 3: consider when when given his ramble. So it's I think
11:29
Speaker 3: that's a good thing and something that helps to make
11:33
Speaker 3: the diagnosis maybe more. You mentioned it earlier, like, yes,
11:38
Speaker 3: there are examples of people who have the diagnosis of
11:41
Speaker 3: autism who are severely impacted, Like there's a lot of
11:44
Speaker 3: behavior things or maybe developmental things or intellectual things that
11:48
Speaker 3: really impact somebody, but there's also a lot of cases
11:52
Speaker 3: where it's pretty minor impact. It's pretty minimal impact. And
11:56
Speaker 3: I think it's important to be able to say that
11:58
Speaker 3: it is a spectrum to because it's not this like
12:02
Speaker 3: end all be all, like this diagnosis is your life's
12:05
Speaker 3: not over because of it, not like RFK was saying
12:09
Speaker 3: the other day, Right, So I think that's a super
12:11
Speaker 3: important thing that the DSM five took into consideration.
12:14
Speaker 1: What I've seen most of the time is that people
12:16
Speaker 1: will break it down into a couple of different categories,
12:18
Speaker 1: usually autism level one, two, three, three needing the most support.
12:22
Speaker 1: So that's typically how psychologists diagnose it.
12:25
Speaker 3: High functioning versus low functioning. Do you hear that in
12:28
Speaker 3: the psychiatry world, Is that like diagnostic or is that
12:33
Speaker 3: more just like terms that have been brought in like
12:38
Speaker 3: through society and culture.
12:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, mostly just as a generic descriptor if you're trying
12:45
Speaker 1: to just describe someone with autism, be like, oh, they're
12:49
Speaker 1: high functioning, low functioning in terms of but yeah, usually
12:52
Speaker 1: we do the level one, two, three to get a
12:55
Speaker 1: little bit more specific, because it is based on how
12:57
Speaker 1: much support they need to get through their daily activities.
13:01
Speaker 3: Good to know.
13:02
Speaker 1: So, one really important thing that I remember learning in
13:04
Speaker 1: residency about autism because I kind of assumed when I
13:08
Speaker 1: was younger, and I was making an ass out of
13:10
Speaker 1: you and me, I assumed that people with autism always
13:14
Speaker 1: had some cognitive deficits or always had some sort of
13:19
Speaker 1: intellectual disability.
13:20
Speaker 2: And I was wrong.
13:21
Speaker 1: So according to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia CHOP, one
13:25
Speaker 1: of the best hospitals in the country, about one percent
13:28
Speaker 1: of the general population has an intellectual disability and about
13:32
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of children with autism have an actual
13:35
Speaker 1: intellectual disability. So the majority of people with autism don't
13:40
Speaker 1: have any intellectual disability. They have absolutely normal IQ. And
13:47
Speaker 1: I think that's a really important point to make because
13:49
Speaker 1: a lot of people assume, oh, autism, they're not going
13:51
Speaker 1: to be as intelligent, but that is absolutely not true.
13:55
Speaker 1: And in a lot of times you see people with
13:57
Speaker 1: autism being incredibly intelligent.
14:00
Speaker 2: Their cap is super high.
14:02
Speaker 3: Another important note to add is at the National Institute
14:05
Speaker 3: of Health and the researchers Carbone or Carboni at all
14:09
Speaker 3: one of those twenty twenty four, they found that about
14:12
Speaker 3: ten percent of autism is rated as severe. So again
14:15
Speaker 3: it's not everybody, not like people are assuming or or think,
14:21
Speaker 3: and that people would say severe autism were more likely
14:23
Speaker 3: to have an intellectual disability at around forty five percent,
14:26
Speaker 3: So there is Again, that's why it's important we categorize
14:29
Speaker 3: it as a spectrum. There there are a group of
14:32
Speaker 3: people with the diagnosis that are more heavily impacted than others.
14:37
Speaker 1: So let's get to RFK Junior. So in his speech,
14:41
Speaker 1: he said, and.
14:42
Speaker 4: These kids will never say taxes, they'll never hold a job,
14:47
Speaker 4: they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll
14:52
Speaker 4: never go out on a date.
14:54
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm gonna keep going because I've been really working
14:56
Speaker 1: on this.
14:57
Speaker 2: Many of them will never use a toilet.
14:59
Speaker 4: On this, he said, autism destroys families, and it's an
15:04
Speaker 4: individual tragedy as well.
15:07
Speaker 1: So sorry, but I just noticed that. You know, Saturday
15:11
Speaker 1: Night Live has tried multiple times now to have people
15:15
Speaker 1: impersonate RFK Junior, and no one's been able to get
15:19
Speaker 1: that laryngeal spasm that he's got going on the real
15:23
Speaker 1: in and out of the voice, and I feel like
15:26
Speaker 1: I've got it.
15:27
Speaker 3: Can I tell you something?
15:29
Speaker 2: Sure?
15:30
Speaker 3: I didn't know he sounded like that until he was
15:32
Speaker 3: being like sworn in of like director of Health and
15:36
Speaker 3: Human Services. I had no clue. Can you imagine how
15:41
Speaker 3: surprised I was, Like, what the fuck is happening?
15:44
Speaker 4: Is?
15:44
Speaker 2: What is going on with that?
15:46
Speaker 3: So what happened to him?
15:48
Speaker 1: Like what is the You know, I don't know exactly,
15:51
Speaker 1: this is something that just happens. I don't know if
15:53
Speaker 1: there was any sort of trauma that caused it. But
15:55
Speaker 1: sometimes the muscles in your larynx that control your voice
15:59
Speaker 1: just spasm randomly. And so if your voice, if your larynx,
16:02
Speaker 1: your voice box is constantly like going in and out
16:05
Speaker 1: of spasming, it's.
16:06
Speaker 4: Really hard and there's kind of that vibration that's actual
16:10
Speaker 4: muscles spasming in there.
16:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean not to like shit on people, but man,
16:15
Speaker 3: if you're gonna sit up here and shit on on
16:18
Speaker 3: people that have autism, then I think we can fairly
16:21
Speaker 3: shit on you for a little bit.
16:22
Speaker 1: So no, Eddie, we got to take the high ground
16:26
Speaker 1: too late.
16:27
Speaker 5: Man, you know what I've said about ted cruz bro
16:30
Speaker 5: don't even Teddy's been safe for a little bit.
16:33
Speaker 3: Don't get me started.
16:35
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that like he hasn't taken more of a
16:39
Speaker 1: prominent role in this administration.
16:41
Speaker 2: Either way, we don't want to get too here.
16:45
Speaker 3: Something that is a political is stats in facts. I
16:49
Speaker 3: guess they they typically would be a political but that's
16:52
Speaker 3: gone down the shit or too. But anyway, from the CDC,
16:54
Speaker 3: so as of April twenty twenty five, about one in
16:57
Speaker 3: thirty one so three point two percent of children aged
17:01
Speaker 3: eight years old have been identified with autism spectrum disorder.
17:05
Speaker 3: This is according to estimates from the CDC's ADDM network.
17:10
Speaker 3: Autism spectrum disorders were reported to occur in all racial, ethnic,
17:14
Speaker 3: and socioeconomic groups, ASD is over three times more common
17:18
Speaker 3: among boys than among girls. And then according to the CDC,
17:22
Speaker 3: the prevalence of autism in society has gone up from
17:24
Speaker 3: one in one hundred and fifty in the year two
17:26
Speaker 3: thousand to now one and thirty one. Like we talked
17:29
Speaker 3: about just a second ago, so I think to your
17:32
Speaker 3: point I don't know if it's it's not an epidemic.
17:39
Speaker 3: I think we're just better at understanding that this is
17:41
Speaker 3: a diagnosis. I don't know. I don't It doesn't have
17:44
Speaker 3: to be not everything has to be a conspiracy theory
17:47
Speaker 3: or like you know, tinfoil hat moment. Sometimes things just are,
17:53
Speaker 3: and I think this is one of those.
17:54
Speaker 1: It's really tricky because you do have people on both
17:57
Speaker 1: sides making arguments for either it's an epidemic or it's
18:02
Speaker 1: just we're getting better at identifying it and diagnosing it officially.
18:06
Speaker 2: But it seems like.
18:07
Speaker 1: Most of like the epidemiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, they're the ones
18:11
Speaker 1: who think, like, yes, we're getting better at identifying it,
18:14
Speaker 1: we're getting more people tested, and we're getting access to
18:18
Speaker 1: the specific types of tests to be able to get
18:21
Speaker 1: this diagnosed officially.
18:24
Speaker 2: So it's hard to know.
18:25
Speaker 1: I tend to lead more towards the medical experts on
18:28
Speaker 1: this thing, but we wanted to try and take somewhat
18:32
Speaker 1: of an objective look at it. But I think one
18:35
Speaker 1: of the things we really wanted to dive in is
18:39
Speaker 1: do vaccines cause autism? Because people like OURFK in the
18:44
Speaker 1: past have blamed vaccines for autism for a long time.
18:48
Speaker 1: That was essentially like how he got famous was he
18:51
Speaker 1: was a big leader in the anti vax movement. And
18:54
Speaker 1: we know that that was incredibly false and it has
18:57
Speaker 1: been proven false multiple times. We want to give you
19:01
Speaker 1: a little bit of the history.
19:02
Speaker 2: You got a point for me?
19:04
Speaker 5: No, I I cannot shake my head anymore, like I
19:10
Speaker 5: don't like what kind of workmen's comp can I get
19:14
Speaker 5: for hurting my neck with how much.
19:15
Speaker 3: I'm fucking shaking it this episode. I just.
19:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, So do vaccines cause autism? We know this is
19:25
Speaker 1: a hot button issue, and we certainly do not want
19:27
Speaker 1: to alienate people for their views, because boy is some
19:31
Speaker 1: of the stuff online very convincing, and boy is propaganda powerful.
19:35
Speaker 1: But because this is such a hot button issue, there
19:38
Speaker 1: have been multiple studies that show that there is no
19:41
Speaker 1: link between vaccines and autism. There have been, in fact,
19:46
Speaker 1: two two small studies that tried to claim that there
19:52
Speaker 1: was a link between autism and vaccines, and these studies
19:56
Speaker 1: have been deeply debunked and they've found to be deeply flawed.
20:01
Speaker 1: The first one was Wakefield nineteen ninety eight. He suggested
20:05
Speaker 1: that the MMR, the measles mumps rubella, which especially with
20:09
Speaker 1: the measles outbreak right now, this is also a hoton issue.
20:12
Speaker 1: The MMR vaccine was linked to autism. This was a
20:15
Speaker 1: study of twelve children, incredibly small. Eight of them had
20:22
Speaker 1: twelve oveh okay, so it was a very small study.
20:29
Speaker 1: Eight of them had autism, so it was relatively small.
20:32
Speaker 1: There was a time correlation between when they got their
20:36
Speaker 1: MMR vaccine and when they were diagnosed with autism. But
20:39
Speaker 1: usually in a typical vaccine schedule and when kids are
20:44
Speaker 1: diagnosed with autism, they happen around the same time. So
20:49
Speaker 1: if we go back to our scientific foundations class, we
20:52
Speaker 1: understand that correlation does not equal causation.
20:56
Speaker 3: You beat me to it. I was saying, let's go
20:57
Speaker 3: back to intro to bio or let's go to bio
21:00
Speaker 3: ninth grade. Right.
21:04
Speaker 1: So this paper was eventually retracted, so they actually took
21:07
Speaker 1: it out of the medical record because it was founded
21:10
Speaker 1: on scientific misconduct and they said it had misrepresented the data.
21:16
Speaker 2: So that was what started it all, was Wakefield nineteen
21:19
Speaker 2: ninety eight.
21:21
Speaker 1: So the second study was Wakefield two thousand and two.
21:26
Speaker 2: Try together.
21:29
Speaker 1: He's like, you know what, they're going to retract my article.
21:31
Speaker 1: I'm going to go right back at it again. So
21:36
Speaker 1: he was studying if there was measles virus present in
21:40
Speaker 1: samples of intestinal tissue in people with autism. And yes,
21:44
Speaker 1: he did find that people with autism were more likely
21:48
Speaker 1: to have that measles vaccine and that deactivated tissue in
21:53
Speaker 1: the intestines. But with the MMR is a live vaccine
21:58
Speaker 1: and can end up in your intestinal tissue. It didn't
22:02
Speaker 1: really prove or call or prove anything. But he was
22:06
Speaker 1: just trying to make more connections between autism and the
22:10
Speaker 1: MMR vaccine. And on the other hand, there have been
22:22
Speaker 1: multiple large, well done studies, highly powered that show that
22:27
Speaker 1: there is no correlation between vaccine and autism. Two of
22:30
Speaker 1: the main ones were Taylor at All nineteen ninety nine
22:33
Speaker 1: Madsen at All in the New England Journal of Medicine,
22:37
Speaker 1: which examined five hundred and thirty seven thousand, three hundred
22:41
Speaker 1: and three different individuals. So it was much larger, much
22:45
Speaker 1: more power and a much better performed study which showed
22:49
Speaker 1: that there is no link. So when you look at
22:51
Speaker 1: the studies, it just is so obvious that there is
22:54
Speaker 1: no connection between vaccines and autism.
23:03
Speaker 3: It's just so hard man. I just like what feels
23:07
Speaker 3: to be an epidemic is the attack on like science
23:10
Speaker 3: and numbers and facts. You know. I think of you know,
23:16
Speaker 3: Fouch Poppy, how much he's you had to deal with.
23:20
Speaker 3: Just you spend your whole life becoming an expert in something.
23:26
Speaker 3: You're a medical professional. You study, you work, you pass boards,
23:32
Speaker 3: you continue in education. You try to be at the
23:35
Speaker 3: top of your game. You don't have to be the
23:37
Speaker 3: top of your field, just you try to just be
23:38
Speaker 3: at the top of your community where you live, where
23:41
Speaker 3: you work, where you serve, And there's always gonna be
23:44
Speaker 3: someone that says, no, I don't believe you.
23:47
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the classic meme you see all
23:50
Speaker 1: the time of like someone sitting on their toilet with
23:53
Speaker 1: a high school diploma is telling like a PhD researcher,
23:57
Speaker 1: like you don't know what you're talking about anyway.
23:59
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that stuff's hard man. I feel for
24:02
Speaker 3: I feel for a community. I feel for the people
24:04
Speaker 3: who either who have autism spectrum disorder themselves or they
24:08
Speaker 3: have someone in their life. I mean three percent of
24:11
Speaker 3: the population or one in thirty one children. That's you
24:15
Speaker 3: look at a typical elementary school classroom. How many kids
24:18
Speaker 3: you got in there? Twenty five, twenty six, thirty, yeah,
24:21
Speaker 3: thirty one.
24:22
Speaker 2: One of them probably has autism.
24:24
Speaker 3: One probably does. Yeah, and it impacts a lot of people.
24:27
Speaker 3: So Yeahah, to see stuff like that is frustrating, and
24:30
Speaker 3: I'm glad we can try to just provide some factual
24:33
Speaker 3: information because it's important.
24:35
Speaker 1: And I will admit that when RFK speaks, he's very convincing.
24:40
Speaker 1: He throws out numbers, he throws out data, he mentioned studies.
24:44
Speaker 1: He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But
24:47
Speaker 1: in researching this episode, I was kind of diving into
24:52
Speaker 1: the different people, picking apart his arguments and trying to
24:57
Speaker 1: figure out if what he was saying is legitimate or not.
25:00
Speaker 1: And honestly, a lot of times he just he completely
25:04
Speaker 1: misrepresents the data. Sometimes he'll just make things up, you know.
25:08
Speaker 1: I was even watching I think it was John Oliver's
25:11
Speaker 1: piece where he really went and dove into the RFK
25:15
Speaker 1: thing recently, and he makes wild claims out there, like
25:19
Speaker 1: half the people in China have been diagnosed with diabetes.
25:23
Speaker 1: Like he'll just throw out random numbers that are just
25:26
Speaker 1: completely wrong and off the wall. He's trying to be
25:31
Speaker 1: a sensationalist, right, He's trying to get people to join
25:33
Speaker 1: his cause. He's trying to tell people that hey, I'm
25:36
Speaker 1: the one who's really right, and I'm going to sell
25:38
Speaker 1: all this merch that says like, hey, hey, my baby's
25:41
Speaker 1: an anti vaxer and all this stuff. So he's not
25:46
Speaker 1: a medical professional.
25:47
Speaker 2: He's not a doctor. He's a lawyer. And do you
25:50
Speaker 2: trust lawyers.
25:53
Speaker 3: As far as I could throw them? I'm just kidding.
25:57
Speaker 3: There's there's definitely some good lawyers out there. Probably I've
25:59
Speaker 3: seen suit, so I don't know.
26:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's good lawyers out there. But it just
26:03
Speaker 1: seems like he's trying to do what he can to
26:06
Speaker 1: further his agenda and further his propaganda. And he's not
26:10
Speaker 1: doing this to be a medical professional by any means.
26:14
Speaker 3: You know. And I think people like him and other
26:16
Speaker 3: people with similar agendas to the administration, they unfortunately like
26:22
Speaker 3: pray on people that just don't know better. And I
26:25
Speaker 3: think that's where it's hard. I think that's where it's
26:27
Speaker 3: really hard, because we can sit here and make fun
26:30
Speaker 3: of him, and we can just be like, how how
26:33
Speaker 3: do people believe this? How do we even get to
26:35
Speaker 3: this point? But if we take back, take a step back,
26:38
Speaker 3: and try to think like you only know what you know.
26:41
Speaker 3: So if you don't know any better when it comes
26:42
Speaker 3: to statistics and science and p values and studies and
26:47
Speaker 3: all that stuff, if you don't know any better, you
26:49
Speaker 3: don't want to read the whole thing, well why not
26:51
Speaker 3: have someone tell it to you.
26:53
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I always like to make the comparison of like,
26:57
Speaker 1: you know, I went to medical school. I know this
27:00
Speaker 1: stuff kind of. I mean, I'm still not perfect, but
27:03
Speaker 1: I always like to compare it to if a diesel
27:06
Speaker 1: mechanic came up to me and started talking about like
27:09
Speaker 1: how a diesel engine works, I would have the basic concepts,
27:14
Speaker 1: but he could make up pretty much anything, and I
27:17
Speaker 1: would say, sounds good to me, makes sense, it's logical.
27:21
Speaker 1: So a lot of people, who I mean the vast
27:23
Speaker 1: majority of people, don't have a solid scientific education. And
27:28
Speaker 1: the education system in America has really gone downhill in
27:31
Speaker 1: terms of scientific education as well too, so people are
27:35
Speaker 1: not equipped to be able to pick apart his arguments.
27:39
Speaker 1: And it's easy to listen to him because he is
27:41
Speaker 1: very charismatic. He does sound like he knows what he's
27:44
Speaker 1: talking about. So I could see why people could be
27:46
Speaker 1: convinced pretty easily. So to end this episode, we wanted
27:50
Speaker 1: to do something. Just give RFK some suggestions because you
27:54
Speaker 1: know he wants to make the AH the America, make
27:57
Speaker 1: America healthy again, you know, America American Health Administration or whatever.
28:04
Speaker 1: So we want to give some suggestions for RFK. If
28:07
Speaker 1: you really want to make America healthy again. Here are
28:12
Speaker 1: some suggestions from two mental health professionals. So stop just
28:17
Speaker 1: targeting people with autism. Like, I know this is how
28:19
Speaker 1: you got famous.
28:20
Speaker 2: I know this is kind of.
28:22
Speaker 1: Your bread and butter issue, but boy, there are so
28:25
Speaker 1: many other things that you could do that you could
28:27
Speaker 1: actually do that is going to help large swaths of
28:31
Speaker 1: Americans be healthier. Some of these may not totally be
28:34
Speaker 1: under his control, but apparently he's got a lot of
28:37
Speaker 1: influence and the President's got he's got the president's ear,
28:40
Speaker 1: so like, yeah, make it happen, well.
28:42
Speaker 3: At least part of his ear, right then.
28:46
Speaker 1: Wow Butler Pennsylvania callback joke. Wow, But I do like
28:57
Speaker 1: that RFK Junior is into health fear, foods for kids,
29:01
Speaker 1: and less food dies because there actually have been some
29:04
Speaker 1: pretty big meta analyzes that show too much processed food
29:08
Speaker 1: and especially food dies can lead to ADHD symptoms and
29:11
Speaker 1: attentiveness and behavior problems. So I think it's totally reasonable, Like,
29:16
Speaker 1: if you really want to make a healthier America, go
29:18
Speaker 1: down that route. Number one, get rid of processed foods
29:22
Speaker 1: and added sugars in school, but also fund the school
29:25
Speaker 1: lunch programs that the school doesn't taste like garbage.
29:28
Speaker 3: Some other things would be like to ban advertisements directed
29:30
Speaker 3: at kids for processed foods. We've already kind of tried
29:33
Speaker 3: to do this with like trying to ban specific flavors
29:37
Speaker 3: of like vapes that are directly geared towards kids, like
29:40
Speaker 3: cotton candy and watermelon sunshine. Yeah, we don't need that, man,
29:46
Speaker 3: Just they're geared towards the kids. Can't be doing that.
29:49
Speaker 2: Sounds delicious, it does.
29:52
Speaker 3: But we can make that choice. We can make that
29:54
Speaker 3: choice a young kid. They get addicted, they're not really
29:58
Speaker 3: making that choice anymore. Else is making the choice for them,
30:01
Speaker 3: and it's big vape.
30:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, big tobacco, which is still has a big, strong hold,
30:07
Speaker 1: big nicotine on our country. Yeah, we could be subsidizing
30:12
Speaker 1: whole foods, whole healthy foods instead of highly processed foods,
30:16
Speaker 1: because you'd be surprised at how many highly processed foods
30:19
Speaker 1: like get government subsidies to be absolutely cheaper for people
30:23
Speaker 1: to buy. So if you're giving people more of an
30:25
Speaker 1: incentive to buy highly processed bad foods for kids, which
30:30
Speaker 1: we know that about seventy percent of the calories that
30:33
Speaker 1: kids consume these days are from highly processed foods, Like,
30:36
Speaker 1: we could completely change the diet of children.
30:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, some bigger things could be things like banning social
30:43
Speaker 3: media for anyone under eighteen and then trying to set
30:45
Speaker 3: limits to four hours a day of video games for
30:47
Speaker 3: anyone under eighteen and the caveast because this has been
30:51
Speaker 3: this has been a kind of fun thing to see
30:53
Speaker 3: in real time. I'd like to think that Justin was
30:56
Speaker 3: kind of at the forefront with his ted talk. It
30:58
Speaker 3: has a fuck ton of views. We always going to
31:00
Speaker 3: bring it up, but I know this has been something
31:02
Speaker 3: that you're passionate about it and I have thought about
31:04
Speaker 3: a lot in terms of the Internet and social media
31:07
Speaker 3: use and screen time with our kids, and it's been
31:09
Speaker 3: kind of interesting to see the discussion and discourse around
31:13
Speaker 3: it recently. Remember we talked about the Anxious Generation book
31:17
Speaker 3: not too long ago, and that came out last year,
31:19
Speaker 3: so it's fairly new. But there's a lot of states
31:23
Speaker 3: right now. I probably shouldn't say a lot because I don't
31:24
Speaker 3: know for sure. Let me just speak on Oregon specifically.
31:28
Speaker 3: There's a piece of legislation that's moving through, that's cleared
31:33
Speaker 3: whatever hurdle it's at, and it looks like it's going
31:35
Speaker 3: to be put into place that's basically mandating that school
31:39
Speaker 3: districts have to have some type of cell phone policy
31:41
Speaker 3: or cell phone ban in place. And that book the
31:45
Speaker 3: Anxious Generation is kind of steamrolling it. It's kind of
31:49
Speaker 3: like got us to the point where a lot of
31:51
Speaker 3: people are like jumping on board. And I want to
31:53
Speaker 3: say this with the caveat of those those last two items,
31:55
Speaker 3: when it comes to social media and video games, I
31:59
Speaker 3: think in an ideal world, we can do something like that.
32:01
Speaker 3: We we can fix that. I think because these things
32:04
Speaker 3: are so intertwined, and not specifically video games, not everybody
32:07
Speaker 3: plays video games, but social media. It's it's not a
32:11
Speaker 3: it's not so much an if, but when thing now
32:14
Speaker 3: with our kids, right and it's it's super integrated into
32:17
Speaker 3: our kids' lives, and it's it's one of those things
32:19
Speaker 3: where what do you mean you don't have Snapchat. What
32:20
Speaker 3: do you mean you don't have Instagram. I don't agree
32:22
Speaker 3: with it at all that the kids are, you know,
32:24
Speaker 3: blowing each other for not having these things, but it's
32:26
Speaker 3: intertwined in their life, right, So it's one of those
32:29
Speaker 3: I don't want to call it evil, but it's one
32:30
Speaker 3: of those things that just it is. It just is right.
32:34
Speaker 3: Same with screens. They just are going to any high school,
32:37
Speaker 3: elementary school, middle school. They have chromebooks, they have computers,
32:41
Speaker 3: they have iPads right that are being used that the
32:44
Speaker 3: school district is providing. So I think, in an ideal world, yeah,
32:47
Speaker 3: we can start to limit, we can limit things like that.
32:50
Speaker 3: Then unfortunately we're not in any ideal world. It's got
32:53
Speaker 3: to be some type of learning to live with. I
32:56
Speaker 3: think is going to be the happy medium that we
32:58
Speaker 3: get to at some point. And I do think something
33:01
Speaker 3: like these cell phone bands and eliminating phones in schools
33:05
Speaker 3: is kind of a step in the right direction. I
33:07
Speaker 3: think taking those away and making it so kids got
33:11
Speaker 3: to focus on school. I don't know, it seems pretty good,
33:14
Speaker 3: so I'll just add those caveats. And I've been thinking
33:17
Speaker 3: about it a lot because of the book The anxious
33:19
Speaker 3: generation because of your expertise, just because things are coming
33:22
Speaker 3: out news wise that directly impact me in my work.
33:26
Speaker 3: I've had a lot of thoughts on it, and it's
33:28
Speaker 3: been kind of cool to like think about it and
33:31
Speaker 3: share thoughts and ideas and just have some type of
33:35
Speaker 3: I don't know, I feel in the know about things,
33:37
Speaker 3: and that's kind of cool.
33:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice.
33:40
Speaker 1: And more and more countries are starting to do these
33:44
Speaker 1: types of things. They're taking the steps, like Australia just
33:46
Speaker 1: to prove to ban on social media for anyone under sixteen. China,
33:50
Speaker 1: I know, we've talked about it in the past, has
33:51
Speaker 1: banned like more than one hour or two hours of
33:55
Speaker 1: video games on weeknights for kids. Like, people are finally
34:00
Speaker 1: starting to realize that if they really want to put
34:01
Speaker 1: the mental health of kids as a priority, they need
34:04
Speaker 1: to make big systemic changes.
34:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
34:06
Speaker 1: Absolutely so a couple other suggestions, RFK, if you're listening,
34:10
Speaker 1: which you know, go ahead, everyone out there, we're probably
34:14
Speaker 1: going to turn this into Instagram videos, tiktoks, go ahead
34:17
Speaker 1: and spread it like it. Make sure our FK junior
34:20
Speaker 1: sees this. Make sure he also hears my awesome impression
34:22
Speaker 1: of him because I'm.
34:24
Speaker 2: Sure he would love it.
34:25
Speaker 1: But provide free daycare and early childhood education for everyone,
34:30
Speaker 1: because socially supported families are healthy families, and so many
34:35
Speaker 1: people in this country are struggling for money, they're working
34:38
Speaker 1: multiple jobs, they're not able to spend as much time
34:40
Speaker 1: with their kids as they would like, and it is
34:42
Speaker 1: just so much pressure on families and it's hard on
34:45
Speaker 1: kid's brain. And then finally, actually fund Medicaid so that
34:50
Speaker 1: kids and kids with autism can get the health care
34:53
Speaker 1: that they need. The current Republican budget plan would cut
34:56
Speaker 1: Medicaid funding, so it actually would mean less resource for
35:00
Speaker 1: kids with autism. So ay, they're villainizing autism and saying like, oh,
35:04
Speaker 1: you know, these kids are they can't function in society
35:08
Speaker 1: the way they should. They can't pay their taxes, and
35:10
Speaker 1: then they're also going to cut their funding so that
35:12
Speaker 1: they don't get the resources that they need to actually
35:14
Speaker 1: work on these things to be functional members of society.
35:17
Speaker 2: So double edged sword.
35:19
Speaker 3: What do you think the majority of people are kids
35:22
Speaker 3: families that get Medicare and Medicaid services.
35:26
Speaker 2: We're in the country largely Republican states.
35:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know, yeah, ironic, right, it's just I.
35:36
Speaker 3: Saw TikTok, and obviously TikTok is super sensationalized and stuff,
35:40
Speaker 3: but I saw a TikTok of a lady being interviewed
35:42
Speaker 3: by their like kind of trolls and stuff, and like
35:46
Speaker 3: I saw one where the guy was like, do you
35:48
Speaker 3: think the government trying to control if people can have
35:51
Speaker 3: guns is overstepping And he's like, yeah, constitution right to
35:54
Speaker 3: bare arms. And then the guy goes, what about like
35:57
Speaker 3: the government saying that like federal agents can go into
35:59
Speaker 3: someone's without a warrant and taking them out, And he's
36:02
Speaker 3: like well, he's like, well that's you know, that's kind
36:04
Speaker 3: of what this administration is doing. And the guy's like
36:05
Speaker 3: oh whatever, and just like walked away like that, Yeah,
36:08
Speaker 3: dissonance with it, same kind of idea that this lady
36:12
Speaker 3: was being interviewed and she lost her job, she lost
36:14
Speaker 3: her federal job because of cuts being made, and she
36:18
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I'd still vote for him, Like okay,
36:20
Speaker 3: well sounds good.
36:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. People got strong beliefs.
36:26
Speaker 1: It's hard to change people's opinions, and people have a
36:30
Speaker 1: confirmation bias. They want to believe what they want to believe,
36:32
Speaker 1: and even if you present them with data against it,
36:34
Speaker 1: They're still like, I don't care. Yeah, So, final points,
36:39
Speaker 1: is there really an autism epidemic? It kind of depends
36:43
Speaker 1: on who you believe right now, which reality you choose
36:46
Speaker 1: to live in, which news sources you choose to get.
36:50
Speaker 1: One side, which is largely made up of people like RFK,
36:53
Speaker 1: anti vaxxers, politics, politicians, skeptics, they say, yes, this is
36:57
Speaker 1: a huge epidemic, there's maybe oxen's out there that might
37:01
Speaker 1: be contributing to it, even though there doesn't really is,
37:04
Speaker 1: it's not really backed up by the data and evidence.
37:06
Speaker 1: And on the other side, made up of like medical professionals,
37:10
Speaker 1: researchers and scientists, say no, there's no significant autism epidemic,
37:15
Speaker 1: that this is largely the result of us being better
37:17
Speaker 1: able to identify it and diagnose it.
37:20
Speaker 3: And Justin and I we tend to lead towards the scientists,
37:23
Speaker 3: the researchers, the medical professionals, but I think we try
37:25
Speaker 3: to still keep an open mind to the possibility that
37:27
Speaker 3: maybe we're missing something. I'll say it too, I think
37:30
Speaker 3: numbers are great. Data is great. Sometimes when it comes
37:33
Speaker 3: to people, you can't necessarily explain something with a number.
37:37
Speaker 3: There's more to it right, you quantitative research is super important,
37:42
Speaker 3: but so it's qualitative research, so it's important to we
37:45
Speaker 3: try to understand other possibilities and we just try to
37:48
Speaker 3: be open. I think that's important. We try to be
37:50
Speaker 3: open and not shut everything out without thinking of all
37:53
Speaker 3: the possibilities.
37:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm an eternal optimist. Maybe all of this conversation
37:58
Speaker 1: will get more funding to studying autism, Like, maybe it
38:02
Speaker 1: will lead to something positive. Maybe we will identify something
38:06
Speaker 1: some sort of environmental factors.
38:07
Speaker 2: That we just don't know yet.
38:09
Speaker 1: There's still a lot and I know that I said
38:12
Speaker 1: that it's kind of a black and white. You know,
38:13
Speaker 1: whose side are you on, and there are people on
38:15
Speaker 1: both sides. There are scientists that are on the side
38:18
Speaker 1: of RFK two, so it's not always so just cut
38:21
Speaker 1: and dry. We had a really good quote that I
38:24
Speaker 1: wanted to share from Kristin Roth, who is the chief
38:27
Speaker 1: marketing officer for the Autism Society of America. She told
38:31
Speaker 1: NPR in an interview that her organization and other leading
38:36
Speaker 1: disability groups agree that there is a need for more
38:39
Speaker 1: autism research. However, it has to be rooted in science,
38:43
Speaker 1: in fact, and to definitively say that autism is caused
38:46
Speaker 1: by an environmental factor or toxin is not rooted in
38:49
Speaker 1: known science right now. Boom, Yeah, I thought that was
38:54
Speaker 1: a really good way to.
38:55
Speaker 2: Sum it all up.
38:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed. What about take home points. Let's wrap it
39:00
Speaker 3: up with some thoughts we have.
39:02
Speaker 1: Take on point for me is that, yes, we can
39:05
Speaker 1: always study autism more, and yes we should be studying
39:09
Speaker 1: autism more. But it seems like this new wave of
39:16
Speaker 1: this epidemic of autism, this belief that this is an epidemic,
39:21
Speaker 1: it doesn't really seem to be rooted in science and fact,
39:24
Speaker 1: and it seems to be pushed by people who have
39:27
Speaker 1: somewhat of an agenda.
39:30
Speaker 3: I think my take home point is going to be
39:31
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ramble for a little bit and hopefully it
39:33
Speaker 3: makes sense. Even if let's just say vaccines did cause autism,
39:38
Speaker 3: let's just say they did. Someone being diagnosed with autism
39:42
Speaker 3: is not the end of the world. People with autism
39:44
Speaker 3: are not broken, they're not incapable, they're not they're not
39:49
Speaker 3: done living their life, and autism diagnosis does not mean
39:52
Speaker 3: that you cannot live a happy, healthy, fulfilling life. So
39:56
Speaker 3: even if they did cause autism, which they don't, having
40:00
Speaker 3: the diagnosis is not the end of the world. And
40:03
Speaker 3: I hate that this diagnosis gets villainized so much by
40:07
Speaker 3: people that don't fully have an understanding of what people
40:11
Speaker 3: with ASD go through on a daily basis and how
40:14
Speaker 3: they live their life.
40:15
Speaker 1: I work with a lot of young people with autism,
40:17
Speaker 1: and they are wonderful people. And I've got some kids
40:21
Speaker 1: who are on the severe spectrum. And what I noticed
40:24
Speaker 1: that even if they're nonverbal, even if they can't communicate,
40:27
Speaker 1: even if they need significant help, their families still really
40:30
Speaker 1: love them and care about them and wouldn't trade them
40:33
Speaker 1: for the world. And I think that says a lot
40:35
Speaker 1: about the human nature and a lot about people and
40:38
Speaker 1: the goodness in people that still exists in this world.
40:42
Speaker 3: And one last thing, since we're still here and recording,
40:47
Speaker 3: let's just stop. Let's stop assuming that everyone that's like
40:51
Speaker 3: a little quirky or a little different has autism. Okay,
40:55
Speaker 3: not everything's a fucking diagnosis. I hear that way too
40:57
Speaker 3: much of like, oh, that person's definitely on the spectrum.
41:00
Speaker 3: You don't know, I don't know, none of us know.
41:03
Speaker 3: We're not here to diagnose. So let's just not assume
41:06
Speaker 3: that's someone that has different characteristics than what you're used to,
41:10
Speaker 3: means that they have an autism diagnosis. Well, on that note, uh,
41:14
Speaker 3: we hope you appreciated our one on one exclusive interview
41:18
Speaker 3: with RFK.
41:19
Speaker 2: You're welcome, Eddie.
41:21
Speaker 3: What seriously man? Thank y'all for listening. We appreciate it.
41:25
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41:28
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41:39
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, and remember take care of
41:42
Speaker 3: all mentals.
41:43
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