Internet Searches of Autism in Popular Media

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss depictions of ASD in popular culture. 

 Rebecchi, K., & Nordahl-Hansen, A. (2026). Short Report: Autism in Popular Media: A Google Trends Analysis of Public Interest. Autism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613261489305

Lay Abstract

This study looked at how people search online for information about autism and Asperger’s, and how popular movies and TV shows influence that interest. By analysing Google Trends data from 2004 to 2025, we found that searches for autism have steadily increased, while searches for Asperger have declined. A small number of media portrayals accounted for most of the search activity, showing that certain portrayals strongly shape public curiosity. Most of these characters were male, although interest in female autistic characters has grown in recent years. Overall, the findings suggest that popular media play an important role in how the public learns about and understands autism, influencing which terms, stories and representations become most visible online.

From the article:

A first notable result is the sex imbalance in the media products identified. Male characters clearly dominated the sample, whereas female characters remained comparatively underrepresented (ratio 1:3). This pattern is consistent with long-standing observations in both clinical and media research (Dean, Nordahl-Hansen, 2022); however, the present data also suggest a gradual change over roughly the last decade, with increased visibility of female-coded characters such as Julia in Sesame Street, Woo Young-woo in Extraordinary Attorney Woo and other more recent portrayals highlighted in research (Rebecchi, 2025; Tharian et al., 2019). 

A second important finding concerns the disparity between canonical status in academic or clinical discourse and apparent visibility in public search behaviour. Rain Man, for example, is often treated as the iconic autism reference (Ikalyuk & Kuzmyn, 2015), yet in the present dataset, it was among the least recurrent and least popular items. Conversely, titles such as The Big Bang Theory, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Sesame Street generated far stronger cumulative search associations. This suggests that the classic reference points do not necessarily coincide with the media objects that structure contemporary online curiosity and interest.

 Moreover, some characters frequently discussed in relation to autism (Nordahl-Hansen, 2017) or autistic traits (The Bridge, Community, Mozart and the Whale, Bones, Dr. House and Atypical) appeared rarely or not at all. Likewise, Music by Sia, despite intense public debate and criticism, in particular by autistic people (Orm et al., 2023), appeared only twice. Although documentaries differ generically from fictional portrayals, their inclusion reflects the broader aim of capturing the full range of popular media formats through which autism becomes visible in public search behaviour. Google Trends captures one specific mode of public engagement, and this likely underrepresents media discussions and visibility that unfold primarily on other platforms (TikTok, Reddit and IMDb, for instance). In addition, the analysis was limited to the terms autism and Asperger; the Google Trends interface does not support Boolean or wildcard queries, precluding the inclusion of related terms such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Future studies may consider extending the search to additional terminology.

The temporal contrast between autism and Asperger is also clear. Across both categories Movies and TV & Video, interest in autism increased progressively from 2004 to 2025, especially from the late 2010s onward, whereas interest in Asperger declined. This pattern likely reflects a broader terminological and cultural shift. Since Asperger’s syndrome was removed as a separate diagnostic category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013 and folded into ASD, the term has gradually lost institutional centrality even if it has remained visible in public discourse. In addition, controversies surrounding Hans Asperger and renewed critical discussion of the historical and ethical implications of the label (see Rebecchi, 2024, for a discussion about this topic) may also have contributed to its declining use. However, the geographic differences between the two terms may suggest that the replacement of Asperger by autism has not occurred uniformly across linguistic and cultural contexts (both in research and popular media). The geographic distribution of search interest should nonetheless be interpreted with caution. While Asperger functions as a proper name and circulates across languages, the term autism is an English-language word; speakers of other languages are more likely to search for equivalent terms (e.g., autismo, autisme, Autismus). The apparent concentration of autism searches in English-speaking regions may, therefore, partly reflect linguistic factors, and cross-regional comparisons between the two terms should be read accordingly.
Finally, one particularly intriguing case is Tim Burton, which was excluded for not being a fictional character or media product in the strict sense. Searches involving Tim Burton may reflect public interest in reported statements or speculation concerning his own possible autism; however, they may also reflect attempts to interpret autism through his films or through universe and characters perceived as atypical or outsider figures in Burton’s cinematic universe (Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, Alice, Miss Peregrine’s Home).

 

Court Case on Research Funds

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential politics. Many posts have discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities. He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

A September 18 release from the National Center for Learning Disabilities:

The Trump Administration must make good on their promises to spend hundreds of millions in education research funds before they expire on September 30, 2026, a federal judge in the District of Massachusetts ruled yesterday. The ruling also prohibited OMB from using apportionment footnotes to apply policy directives from Executive Orders to hundreds of millions of dollars in Congressionally appropriated funding for education research programs.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Protect Democracy and Jacobson Lawyers Group on behalf of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and other stakeholders against OMB Director Russell Vought, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and acting IES Director Matthew Soldner in June, to ensure students, schools, and education organizations across the country can receive hundred of millions of dollars already appropriated for students. The suit argued that the funding freeze violated the Anti-Deficiency Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Today’s order holds that OMB acted unlawfully in using apportionments to forbid the Department of Education from spending education research funds on purported DEI activities, and to require the Department to give political appointees control over the awarding of grants. Setting aside the imposition of these Executive Order policy directives through the apportionment process ensures that OMB cannot leverage the apportionment process — and threaten agency officials with administrative and criminal penalties tied to that process — in order to dictate how congressional appropriations are spent.

The court also ordered the Department of Education to update the court as the end of the fiscal year nears, to ensure that all the funds appropriated by Congress are obligated before they expire.
...

“The court affirmed today that OMB cannot abuse obscure administrative processes to supplant Congress’s sole authority to dictate how federal funds are spent.” said Dan Jacobson, Jacobson Lawyers Group PLLC.

Click to read more about this case and view related documents on Protect Democracy’s website here.

Ema Rose Schumer and Claire Shapiro at Executive Functions:

Judge Allison D. Burroughs (D. Mass.) on Thursday granted partial summary judgment to education groups and vacated, as contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious, Office of Management and Budget apportionment footnotes conditioning Department of Education research funds on compliance with two of President Trump’s executive orders, including the January 2025 order ending federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. (Memorandum and Order.)

 From the Memorandum and Order:

Plaintiffs contend that they have standing to challenge the footnotes because the Department and its political appointees have interpreted the prohibition on “DEI” to require “scrapping programs for children with disabilities” on the basis that these programs are a form of inclusion, and that “Knowledge Alliance’s members have been chilled from mentioning their work involving equity and disabilities in their funding applications.” [ECF No. 63 at 15]. According to Plaintiffs, this shows that the Executive Order Footnotes will harm them regardless of whether the Department carries them out in a way that directly conflicts with any staute.

 

Measles, Late September 2026

  In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined. 

From CDC:

As of September 24, 2026, 3,659 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 3,642 measles cases were reported by 47 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A total of 17 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 40 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 95% of confirmed cases (3,478 of 3,659) are outbreak-associated (2,094 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,384 from outbreaks that started in 2025).

For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States.

Meta-Analysis Debunks the Tylenol Idea

 A number of posts have discussed Trump's support for discredited notions about autism. The Sept 22, 2025, White House news conference was a firehose of lies. The next month, he posted an unfounded warning about Tylenol.  RFK then tiptoed away from the idea that it definitely causes autism.  A BMJ lit review debunked the idea. A Lancet review did likewise.

Tayebi-Hillali H, Blanco-Suárez M, Rivas-Mundiña B, Limeres-Posse J, Diniz-Freitas M, Diz-Dios P. Prenatal exposure to paracetamol and the risk of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: An umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2026; 00: 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.70512

Abstract

Aim

To evaluate whether prenatal exposure to paracetamol (acetaminophen) is associated with an increased risk of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in offspring, using a meta-meta-analytical (umbrella review) approach.
Method

We conducted a registered umbrella review (PROSPERO CRD420251243790) of systematic reviews with meta-analyses assessing prenatal paracetamol exposure and autism or ADHD. Searches were performed in six major databases up to November 2025. Methodological quality was appraised using AMSTAR-2, and overlap of primary studies was quantified using the corrected covered area. Random-effects meta-meta-analyses were performed for unrestricted, partially quality-restricted, and fully quality-restricted models. When overlap was high, additional meta-analyses of low-risk primary studies were conducted, with risk of bias assessed using ROBINS-E.
Results

Seven meta-analyses were included, encompassing more than 3 million participants. Unrestricted meta-meta-analyses showed small positive associations between prenatal paracetamol exposure and both autism (risk ratio 1.17) and ADHD (risk ratio 1.29). However, after restricting analyses to higher-quality meta-analyses and low-risk primary studies, effect estimates were substantially attenuated and, in several models, approached the null. High heterogeneity and substantial overlap were observed, particularly in analyses of primary studies.
Interpretation

The observed associations between prenatal paracetamol exposure and neurodevelopmental disorders are probably influenced by methodological limitations, including residual confounding and exposure misclassification. Current epidemiological evidence does not support a robust causal relationship, and paracetamol remains an appropriate first-line treatment during pregnancy when clinically indicated.

Graphical Abstract

This meta-meta-analysis synthesizes evidence on prenatal paracetamol exposure and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Crude analyses suggest small associations with autism and ADHD, but these attenuate substantially when restricting to high-quality meta-analyses and low-bias primary studies. Overall, the findings indicate a lack of robust epidemiological evidence supporting a causal association.

The Limits of Vouchers in Texas

In The Politics of Autism, I write about social services, special education, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 7.5 million children 3 to 21 years old received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in AY 2022-23.

About 980,000 of them were autistic, up from 498,000 in 2012-13.

The Trump administration is halving the Department of Education staff, which is proposing to close.  It supports school choice, which is fine when there are schools to choose from.  That is not always the case.

Jessica Ma, Dallas Morning News:

The Texas Education Freedom Accounts promised vouchers would give students with special needs options beyond public schools. Despite being awarded taxpayer-funded accounts, many families struggled to find a suitable school to spend it on. This means private education is still out of reach for Texas’ most vulnerable children, critics of the voucher program say.

“Private does not always mean better,” Ross said. “With more opportunity, comes more work, more heartbreak, more disappointment.”

Proponents believe private schools will proliferate and meet demand. The comptroller’s office, which oversees TEFA, plans to survey families to understand why they opted out, and their responses will inform the improvements made to the program, a spokesperson said. It’s also possible parents were unaware of deadlines, considering public school, or moved out of state, he said.

While 29,400 applicants with disabilities were deemed eligible, at least 7,400 have since returned their voucher. By early September, a total of 27,500 students left the funds on the table, according to data received through a public records request. The Dallas Morning News spoke to six North Texas parents about the challenges they faced in their private school search.

Many were told their child’s needs couldn’t be accommodated. Others realized the prospective school was too far or too expensive. And there were those left waiting for replies that never came. All applied — swayed by the prospect of a private education.

In August, Jessica Ma reported:

The data, which gives a snapshot as of Aug. 5, shows that more than 20,700 students opted out. About 14,100 students, or 68%, were enrolled in a public school during the 2024-25 school year.

Students with disabilities were the first in line to receive a voucher. The state deemed 29,400 applicants in this first tier eligible. About 7,300 — nearly 1 in 4 — opted out, records show.

It’s an uphill battle for these students, said David DeMatthews, a professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. A low-income child with intensive needs will especially struggle to find a suitable school, he said.

The more severe the needs, the more expensive the services. But specialized private schools for students with disabilities tend to be concentrated in urban metro areas. Seats are limited and tuition gets high — sometimes reaching over $40,000.

“Those with the most need are going to be the least likely to get help from this program,” DeMatthews said.

 

Another Potential Correlate: TORCH Infections

  In The Politics of Autism, I discuss various ideas about what causes the condition.  Dozens of potential causes and correlates have been the subject of scientific and medical research.

Sjöqvist H, Dalman C, Mataix-Cols D, Gardner RM, Karlsson H. Congenital TORCH Infections and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes. JAMA Pediatr. Published online September 21, 2026. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.4229

Key Points

Question Are congenital TORCH (toxoplasmosis, syphilis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, or herpes simplex) infections associated with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric outcomes?

Findings In this cohort study of 3 666 002 individuals born in Sweden, including 975 who were exposed, TORCH infections were associated with intellectual disability and autism in population analyses and sibling comparisons, with markedly higher risks for severe intellectual disability and autism with co-occurring intellectual disability.

Meaning This study found that congenital TORCH infections had associations with intellectual disability and autism, underscoring the importance of strengthening global vaccination programs and other preventive strategies.

A partial list of other potential causes and correlates: 

1. Inflammatory bowel disease
2. Pesticides
3. Air pollution and proximity to freeways
4. Maternal thyroid issues
5. Autoimmune disorders
6. Induced labor
7. Preterm birth
8. Fever  
9. Birth by cesarean section;
10. Anesthesia during cesarean sections
11. Maternal and paternal obesity
12. Maternal diabetes
13. Maternal and paternal age
14. Grandparental age
15. Maternal post-traumatic stress disorder
16. Maternal anorexia
17. Smoking during pregnancy
18. Cannabis use during pregnancy
19. Antidepressant use during pregnancy
20. Polycystic ovary syndrome
21. Infant opioid withdrawal
22. Zinc deficiency
23. Sulfate deficiency
24. Processed foods
25. Maternal occupational exposure to solvents
26. Congenital heart disease
27. Insufficient placental allopregnanolone
28. Estrogen in the womb
29. Morning sickness;
30. Paternal family history
31. Parental preterm birth
32. Antiseizure meds
33. Location of forebears
34. Lithium
35. Aspartame
36. BPA
37. Brain inflammation
38. Maternal asthma
39. Infertility
40. Ultraprocessed foods
41. Household chemicals
42. Parental psychiatric disorders
43. Fluoride
44. Fatty acids in umbilical cord blood
45. Maternal inflammation during pregnancy
46. COVID-19
47. Wildfire smoke
48.  Sterol biosynthesis–inhibiting medications (SBIMs)
49. Maternal occupation history

Evaluating Trainings for First Responders

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss interactions between police and autistic people. When cops encounter autistic people, they may not respond in the same way as NT people, and things can get out of hand. Among other things, they may misinterpret autistic behavior as aggressive or defiant. Training could help.

Kiernan, B., Mazurek, M.O. & Nevill, R.E. An Examination of First Responder Gains Following an Autism Training Based on Personal and Professional Characteristics. J Autism Dev Disord (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-026-07520-z

Abstract

Purpose

Autistic people are likely to encounter first responders, which frequently results in ineffective or even harmful experiences for autistic people. Trainings have been developed to improve first responders’ efficacy with responding to situations involving autistic people and their families. The present study examines the impact of professional and personal characteristics on participants’ confidence, self-efficacy, and knowledge in providing first response to autistic people following an autism training.

Methods

This study examined pre- and post- training measures completed by participants compared baseline, outcome, and change scores across participant groups, identifying the influence of professional role, personal relationships, and other demographic characteristics on training gains.

Results

Findings show that, regardless of professional role and personal relationship status, participants improved across outcomes following the training. Law enforcement officers entered training with higher self-efficacy and saw less improvement overall. Those with a close and a distal personal relationship showed higher baseline confidence and self-efficacy, and participants with a close personal relationship had higher outcome confidence scores as well. Participants without a personal relationship saw more change in confidence than those with a close or a distal relationship to autism.
Conclusion

Overall, the autism training improved participant confidence, self-efficacy, and knowledge in responding to situations involving autistic people, regardless of their professional role or relationship to autism. Ensuring that all providers are trained or re-trained, regardless of their personal relationship, goal, or other demographic, is an important step towards improving efficacy of first response for autistic people.

From the article:

The present study explored how autism training may be differentially effective with first responders based on their professional and personal characteristics, including their profession, personal relationship with autism, and demographic characteristics. The results of this study indicated that participants, regardless of professional role or personal relationship, showed improvements across outcomes after completing a brief, three-hour training. However, in the models examining how participant role influenced training outcomes, an interesting pattern emerged:The present study explored how autism training may be differentially effective with first responders based on their professional and personal characteristics, including their profession, personal relationship with autism, and demographic characteristics. The results of this study indicated that participants, regardless of professional role or personal relationship, showed improvements across outcomes after completing a brief, three-hour training. However, in the models examining how participant role influenced training outcomes, an interesting pattern emerged: there were significant improvements in outcomes that were subjectively rated (i.e., confidence and self-efficacy) whereas the objectively rated outcome (knowledge) did not significantly improve.

Life Expectancy Among Autistic Medicaid Beneficiaries

In The Politics of Autism, I write:

Many analyses of autism speak as if it were only a childhood ailment and assume that parents are the main stakeholders. But most children with autism grow up to be adults with autism, and they suffer uniquely high levels of social isolation. Almost 40 percent of youth with an autism spectrum disorder never get together with friends, and 50 percent of never receive phone calls from friends. These figures are higher than for peers with intellectual disability, emotional disturbance, or learning disability. When school ends, many adults with autism have grim prospects. Though evidence is sparse, it seems that most do not find full-time jobs. Compared with other people their age, they have higher rates of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and suicide attempts.

Li G, DiGuiseppi CG, Blanchard A, Russell MT, Ing C. Autism Spectrum Disorder and Life Expectancy Among Medicaid Beneficiaries. JAMA Netw Open. 2026;9(9):e2633251. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.33251

In this serial cross-sectional study of Medicaid beneficiaries, life expectancy at birth for those with ASD was approximately 65 years, nearly 6 years less than for the Medicaid beneficiary population and 14 years less than for the US general population. The shortened life expectancy for Medicaid beneficiaries with ASD was due to excess mortality from a variety of diseases and health problems. Compared with the general population, autistic women face a greater deficit in life expectancy than autistic men do, due to more psychiatric comorbidities and resulting excess mortality.4,5,8,9

Our study has several notable limitations. Because Medicaid is a means-tested public insurance program for low-income individuals and individuals with disabilities, beneficiaries with ASD are likely to have lower socioeconomic status and more severe symptoms than autistic individuals who are not enrolled in Medicaid, possibly biasing life expectancies reported in our study toward underestimation.10 Moreover, Medicaid beneficiaries with ASD are disproportionately children, young adults, and males compared with the reference populations, a potential concern for residual bias from unmeasured confounding in the SMRs. Despite these limitations, our findings have important implications for developing targeted interventions to reduce preventable excess mortality among people with ASD.

 

Trump Repeats the Lie that Vaccines Cause Autism

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.

A number of posts discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion.

Trump, yesterday:

We’re also going to be recommending — not recommending, demanding — the drug companies, with respect to a certain situation, maybe you want to mention that, discuss it — that the autism, that they make their doses in 20% shots. So you have shot one, shot two, shot three, shot four, shot five.

So instead of having a massive dose of 82 or 88 different vaccines pumped into your own, we’ll take out certain vaccines that people are a little worried about — and that have not — I mean, we would never even think about the polio vaccine, it’s been amazing, and so many others that have been so good. But we’re going to break it into 20% doses so that instead of a child going in and having a tremendous amount of different vaccines pumped into so big a proportion of the body, and then they wake up the next day and they’ve got a 109 temperature, and then the worst thing happens that can happen to a parent. The worst, actually. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it happen.

So we’re going to recommend that they do five doses marked one, two, three, four, five, and that they’d be given in six month intervals so that a small amount of the vaccine gets pumped into the body. And we’re going to be splitting up some of the vaccines. You’ll get everything that they want, everything that is recommended. We’re going to go a little bit with some of the European system in terms of the vaccines, but the biggest thing is certain vaccines were taken out because they’re not needed until a child would be much older.

No reason to do it so early. But the vaccine size will be much, much less, and I think you’re going to see a massive reduction in autism, and that’s a big deal. That’s a very big deal. So we’re going to be recommending that and actually demanding it. You’re going to have one, two, three, four, five. It’ll be spread out over six months, every six months. They’ll be fully vaccinated in much smaller doses. So I think it’s going to have a huge impact, and you’ll see that in the years to come. You have to actually see it, but you’ll see it in the years to come.

Deidre McPhillips and Meg Tirrell at CNN:

Such a plan would render vaccines ineffective and wouldn’t make them safer, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia...Trump’s idea to split up the shots “is buffoonery,” said Offit, a vaccine inventor. He noted that vaccines are studied extensively so their dosing schedule is optimized for efficacy and safety, and he said that reducing the amount administered and giving more shots would make it so the vaccines don’t work while doing nothing to increase safety.

“When you create a vaccine, you do a dose response curve, and you’re trying to give the least amount of vaccine that induces an immune response that’s protective. So you don’t want to give too much, where you know you don’t need all that, and you don’t want to give too little, where it’s you know sub-immunogenic,” meaning it wouldn’t induce an immune response. Put more simply, Offit told CNN, “What he’s suggesting would not work. He’s basically saying he wants to give vaccines in a manner in which they wouldn’t be protective.”

Offit also pointed out that vaccines don’t overwhelm babies’ immune systems, as they expose us to much less than we encounter every day naturally.\

“You make a billion new B and T cells every day to handle the onslaught of viruses and bacteria from your environment,” Offit said. “Vaccines are literally a drop in the ocean of what you encounter and manage every day.

“The notion that vaccines in any way are overwhelming your immune system, causing chronic disease, is just fanciful.”

Mister Measles

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined. 

CDC:

As of September 17, 2026, 3,471 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 3,454 measles cases were reported by 47 jurisdictions: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A total of 17 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 39 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 95% of confirmed cases (3,296 of 3,471) are outbreak-associated (1,920 from outbreaks starting in 2026 and 1,376 from outbreaks that started in 2025).

For the full year of 2025, a total of 2,289 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States.

Jessica McDonald at FactCheck.org:

It’s difficult to directly compare measles outbreak responses across countries, experts told us, which makes Kennedy’s claim that the U.S. has done “better” than any other country a bit squishy. 

But a reasonable place to start is with the per capita rate over the same period of time, Ana Bento, an assistant professor of infectious disease ecology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, told us. And on that measure, the U.S. is nowhere near the best.

According to measles data from the World Health Organization, as of Sept. 14, the U.S. had 13.2 measles cases per 1 million people in 2026. That’s the 65th highest rate of measles in the world for 2026, out of 169 nations with data. That places it in the worst 38% of nations, and about as good as Russia.

For 2025, the U.S. did slightly better, but with the 86th highest measles rate out of 184 nations, it still ranked in the lower half of countries for the fewest measles cases per population.

 Melody Schreiber at The Guardian:

As the death toll from the worst measles outbreak in decades rises, Robert F Kennedy Jr headlined the Washington DC conference of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, which he led for nearly two decades.

“Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy, now serving as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told anti-vaccine activists at the conference in a nearly hour-and-a-half-long speech. He urged patience, saying that he would’ve made sweeping changes “on day one” but that he had to follow the law in order to make permanent change.

“But as I said, you have friends in the White House, and we are doing this one day at a time,” Kennedy said.

He only addressed the measles outbreak, which recently killed four people in Pennsylvania, once.

“In our country we care about rare illnesses and deaths. We care about every child who dies from measles. They get headlines,” he said. “I’d ask you to care about children who are dying or suffering or being injured by vaccine injuries.”

Collateral Damage of the Fight against Medicaid Fraud

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families.   Scams plague the world of autism. Some involve shady or abusive providers.

The Minnesota investigations started under the Biden administration.  Now the fight against fraud is hurting legitimate providers and autistic kids.

Kelly Hooper at Politico:

One autism therapy provider in Nebraska recently lost half its staff and has a growing wait list of children who can’t access services. A small Colorado practice is losing out on tens of thousands of dollars as it continues treating a child whose care was suddenly denied. An autism clinic in New York has stopped accepting Medicaid patients.

They say they are suffering because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on Medicaid fraud, even though none of the providers have been found guilty of fraud. Rather, they told POLITICO the push to root out bad actors by both President Donald Trump and the states — through funding cuts, staffing rules and new paperwork — is raising costs across the industry, and curbing access to services for children with autism.

“Yes, there were bad apples, and, absolutely, we agree there should be oversight,” said Holly Creamer, senior clinical director at Heartland ABA, an autism therapy provider in Nebraska. “The oversight should not equate to taking services away from kids and families who need it.”

The fraud crackdown has found plenty of wrongdoing. In Minnesota, providers took advantage of regulatory loopholes to charge outsized fees and billed Medicaid for services they never provided. It cost the program tens of millions of dollars. Similar stories are emerging in other states.

But the crackdown’s impact on legitimate providers — particularly independent, rural clinics — highlights the unintended ripple effects for both the businesses and the millions of American children who need the care. According to the latest federal data, 1 in 31 children has autism, a neurological condition that affects the ability to communicate, up from 1 in 150 a generation ago. Specialists in the condition say it’s mostly the result of improved diagnostic criteria.

Service providers said they support more regular audits to catch fraud, but they need clearer guidelines from states amid an uptick in unexplained Medicaid denials and new, “burdensome” paperwork requirements.

“Right now, there’s really blunt instruments that are being used across the board. They’re going to negatively impact all providers, and then ultimately children and families, because it will reduce access to care,” said Becky Thompson, president of the Wisconsin Autism Providers Association.

Stopping bad actors without inadvertently hurting legitimate providers “requires surgical precision,” but that’s not happening, she said.

Yet Another Measles Death

  In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.  Last year, he lied about it under oath.

Since  Trump took office in 2025, the U.S. has recorded more confirmed measles cases than in the previous 20 years combined.

 
Dani Blum at NYT:

Pennsylvania health officials announced on Tuesday that a fourth person in the state had died from measles, making 2026 the deadliest year for measles in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000.

The Mifflin County coroner’s office said an 18-year-old died from a rare neurological complication of measles. The person was not vaccinated, according to the state health department.

A coroner from another Pennsylvania county announced this week that a 40-year-old unvaccinated woman had died from measles complications. On Tuesday, that coroner, Greg Furlong, said that testing had confirmed the woman had contracted measles. Last month, state health officials reported the deaths of two infants who had measles.

Pennsylvania is facing a rapidly expanding measles outbreak that has sickened nearly 700 people and hospitalized more than 130 people. But there are likely to be many more measles cases that have not been reported, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. There are roughly one to three deaths for every 1,000 cases of measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggesting that the true case count in Pennsylvania is higher.

Measles deaths have been very rare in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated from the country in 2000. But as measles has come roaring back, more deaths have occurred. In 2025, two children and an unvaccinated adult died of measles, the first such deaths in a decade.

 

Remember the tragic measles epidemic and recent deaths in Pennsylvania are still modest relative to what could be in store for us in February March April 2027. In the pre-vaccine era measles reliably peaked in late winter and early spring. And sure enough as antivaccine activism… pic.twitter.com/4zRVwJop6e

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon) (@PeterHotez) September 13, 2026