The Trump Administration's Slurs

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."

Trump has a long history of using the r-word, and Lordy, there are tapes.

 James Moore at The Independent:

In this case, it was my Independent colleague and White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg, who was in the Oval Office for a press conference about offering incentives to tax-fraud whistleblowers.

First, a visibly volatile Trump snapped at Feinberg, telling him: “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful.” Then Feinberg was verbally attacked for supposedly asking a question out of turn. “What’s wrong with you? Are you a sick person?”

When Feinberg said he didn’t think he was ill, Trump hit back: “I actually think there’s something wrong with you.”

But then it got really nasty when the vice president JD Vance posted a video of the encounter calling Feinberg an “imbecile ‘journalist’”. Feinberg replied: “Mr Vice President, if you’re going to insult me, at least have the guts to tag my account.”

An anonymous X account used by White House staffers, “Rapid Response”, then hailed the president’s appalling speech: “.@POTUS absolutely roasts Mongoloid Moron @AndrewFeinberg for his disgraceful behavior.”

I have to admit, I had to read all this several times. Did a world leader actually say any of that? Did members of the administration really follow it up, using the M-word? Is that where we are now? I’m afraid that it is.

I am not a member of the language police. I greatly dislike the term “handicapped”, for example, a word still commonly used in the US, and I wouldn’t use it to describe myself. But there are some words which you just don’t use in polite – or really any – company. “Mongol” is one of them; “r*****” is another. But, then, good manners have never stopped the president from saying either.

RFK and the Antivaxxers Are GOP Liabilities

   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. 

With more than two months to go in 2026, the US has already DOUBLED its 2025 total.

Patrick Temple-West at The Financial Times:

Kennedy’s emphasis on healthy eating has been widely popular, but his vaccine scepticism contrasts with roughly 80 per cent of Republicans who have expressed confidence in childhood vaccines, said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. 

 “When he is casting aspersions on the safety of vaccines, it’s running against the overwhelming belief in America that we have been blessed with a medical miracle,” Ayres said. 

 “It just runs overwhelmingly against the strongly held view of public opinion and does not help the [Trump] administration.” 

...

 Texas Republican attorney-general Ken Paxton, who is running in a tight race for a US Senate seat, has been one of the most vocal Republican candidates to align with Kennedy against vaccines. Earlier this year, Paxton started investigating healthcare companies for possibly paying doctors illegally to dole out vaccines. 

 Last year, two children died from measles in Texas. 

ICE Agents Assault Disabled Citizen

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.

Andrea Castillo at LAT:

Federal immigration agents violently detained a 20-year-old U.S. citizen and Santa Maria (Calif.) High School student with special needs on Wednesday morning, according to school and city officials.

The student, who has limited verbal communication and is on an individualized education program, was walking to school around 7 a.m. when two agents tackled him from behind, questioned him about his citizenship and restrained him in their vehicle. He was eventually released in the area where he was picked up and walked to school, where officials called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital, said Santa Maria City Councilmember Gloria Soto.

The student underwent surgery for injuries to his wrist, she said, and was left with bruises and lacerations.

Soto said a school resource officer obtained security footage from a nearby grocery store and confirmed that the people who had detained the student are agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In an emailed statement, an unidentified ICE spokesperson wrote that agents were conducting a targeted enforcement operation in Santa Maria “when they encountered an individual they believed matched the description of the criminal illegal alien target.”

Measles: US Doubles its 2026 Total

   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. 

With more than two months to go in 2026, the US has already DOUBLED its 2025 total.

CDC:

As of October 22, 2026, 4,588 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 4,570 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 18 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 43 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 96% of confirmed cases (4,404 of 4,588) are outbreak-associated (3,020 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.

Joint Catholic Letter to Congress on Olmstead v. L.C.

  In The Politics of Autism, I discuss court cases involving the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

Trump does not care.  He despises people with disabilities.  His head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is a political hack who uses the r-word as a slur.

In June, the Department of Justice quietly released a memo pertaining to the landmark 1999 disability civil rights case Olmstead v. L.C.  DOJ stated it “will not rely upon the Olmstead Guidance in its enforcement” of the ADA, and that Olmstead is “not enforceable.”That precedent, the memo claimed without evidence, increases homelessness.

Joint Catholic Letter to Congress on Olmstead v. L.C.:

October 14, 2026

Dear Senator/Representative:

On June 18, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Department of Justice (DOJ), in a slip opinion, announced a reversal of its longstanding position implementing the Supreme Court’s Olmstead v. L.C. opinion, that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to provide services in the most integrated setting appropriate to an individual’s needs. Notwithstanding its measured legal language, the OLC slip opinion constitutes a radical undertaking that, in its own words, is admittedly “out of step with the common understanding” of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Olmstead v. L.C. and how it is interpreted by “the vast majority of courts.”[1]

This announcement is deeply troubling. Subsequent actions taken by DOJ call into question its commitment to enforce the integration mandate and will lead to widespread pain and suffering among persons with disabilities and their families. We urge Congress to do everything in its power to affirm the rights of persons living with disabilities to flourish in their families and communities. Congress must act to protect the programs, policies, and resources that persons with disabilities and their families rely on to thrive.

In their pastoral statement on persons with disabilities, the Catholic bishops of the United States note the Church’s defense of the right to life


implies the defense of other rights that enable the disabled individual to achieve the fullest measure of personal development of which he or she is capable. These include the right to equal opportunity in education, in employment, in housing, as well as the right to free access to public accommodations, facilities, and services.[2]

Institutionalization should be a last resort because it deprives persons of these rights and opportunities while also stripping communities of the presence and participation of such persons.

Our parishes, schools, and social and health ministries in every diocese in this nation are enriched and blessed by the opportunity to worship with, serve alongside, and learn from persons with disabilities. It is in these interactions that we recognize that too often “[w]hen we think of persons with disabilities in relation to ministry, we tend automatically to think of doing something for them. We do not reflect that they can do something for us and with us.”[3] Institutionalization is a top-down approach, the very warehousing of the most vulnerable, and the result is that we all suffer.

There is a more humane and just path forward--the family, which Church teaching regards as essential for persons to flourish. The bishops have noted that the “central importance of family members in the lives of all persons with disabilities, regardless of age, must never be underestimated.”[4] In this vein, when the Supreme Court decided Olmstead in 1999, it recognized that most persons with disabilities can thrive with their families or in community-based settings, and that the government has an obligation to support them to the extent possible. As a result, Catholic hospitals, charities, schools, ministries, and parishes across the country work with public services to ensure persons with disabilities and their families have the resources they need to live healthy, vibrant, and productive lives. The Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead is a linchpin of this system; without its civil rights framework, persons with disabilities, their families, and the community organizations that support them simply will not have access to the resources they need and deserve. The re-institutionalization of persons with disabilities in substandard and possibly inhumane conditions is a foreseeable consequence of the DOJ’s recent move to reinterpret the decision.

A government’s most hallowed moral obligation is to protect the life and dignity of everyone, from conception through natural death. Ensuring that persons with disabilities have the support and resources they need to lead safe, healthy, and productive lives flows directly from this obligation.

We support members in Congress who have already called on the Administration to rescind the OLC's June 18, 2026, slip opinion undermining Olmstead and encourage other members to join that effort. Congress should do everything in its power to protect persons living with disabilities--including reaffirming that the ADA requires states and local governments to provide services to persons with disabilities in their communities when appropriate. We stand ready to collaborate with you in this important work.

Sincerely,

Most Rev. Shelton J. Fabre
Archbishop of Louisville
Chair, Committee on Domestic Justice & Human Development
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Most Rev. Edward J. Burns
Bishop of Dallas
Chair, Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life & Youth
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Sister Mary Haddad, RSM
President & CEO
Catholic Health Association of the United States

Mr. Leo Zanchettin
Board Chair
National Catholic Partnership on Disability

Ms. Kerry Alys Robinson
President & CEO
Catholic Charities USA

Rev. Chris Kellerman, S.J.
Secretary of Justice & Ecology
Jesuit Conference of Canada & the United States

[1] Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. (2026). “Application of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act to State Institutional of Patients with Severe Mental Illness or Disabilities.” Available: justice.gov/olc/media/1446701/dl

[2] United States Catholic Conference (1978). Pastoral Statement of U.S. Catholic Bishops on Persons with Disabilities. p.3. Available: usccb.org/resources/pastoral-statement-persons-disabilities

[3] Ibid at p.5.

[4] Ibid at p.5.

Joint Catholic Letter to Congress on Olmstead v. L.C.

Private Equity and Billable Hours

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of autism service providers.  Private equity firms now own many of them.   Insurance mandates and Medicaid spending have contributed to the growth trend.

Anna Wilde Mathews, Christopher Weaver, and  Tom McGinty at WSJ:

Many autism-therapy providers and an industry group cite studies of young children showing high-hour therapy can help those with severe challenges. Government officials and insurers have scrutinized long hours, at times pointing to other research, disputed by some providers, that raised questions about the correlation between long therapy hours and improved outcomes. New federal guidelines for Medicaid say there is no correlation.

Private-equity firms have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into building national chains of clinics to serve children diagnosed with autism. The Journal’s autism-treatment analysis looked at Centria, majority-owned by THL Partners; Action Behavior Centers, backed by Charlesbank Capital Partners; Hopebridge, acquired by Arsenal Capital Partners; Cerberus Capital Management-backed Lighthouse Autism Center; and Learn Behavioral, majority-owned by Gryphon Investors, which billed fewer hours a week, on average, than its competitors.

All five companies said they individualize treatment, including weekly hours, based on patient needs, not financial considerations.

The four companies with higher-than-average hours said the Journal’s analysis of Medicaid claims didn’t account for differences in the severity of patients’ autism, and that their nap policies aim to accommodate children’s sleep needs. Centria, Action and Lighthouse said their patients had more severe autism than average, justifying more therapy.

Centria said waking a 3-year-old as described by Hosking wouldn’t have complied with its policies, and such an incident wasn’t documented at the time. Action disputed the assertion in the Medicaid guidelines that treatment intensity doesn’t correlate with outcomes.

Former employees of the four higher-hour companies said in interviews they felt pressure to recommend long therapy schedules for children, and that centers sometimes turned away children who needed low weekly hours.

 

 

Two Doctors Who Were GOP Congressmen Warn Their Party About 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.

Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers.   Even before COVID, they were fighting vaccine mandates and other public health measures.

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

Former Representatives. Larry Bucshon, M.D., a Republican from Indiana, and Michael C. Burgess, M.D., a Republican at STAT:

This year, the United States has already recorded more than 4,000 cases, the highest annual total since 1991, along with six related deaths. These numbers are showing no sign of decline.

Voters have certainly noticed — and they’re blaming Republicans. According to a recent KFF poll, more than 60% of voters now disapprove of the Trump administration’s handling of vaccine policy. Only 28% of independents approve. Democrats now hold a 16-point advantage on the issue: Forty-one percent of voters trust them more to handle vaccine policy, compared with 25% who trust Republicans..

    ... 

Our party’s own data warned us that backsliding on vaccines would hurt our prospects. In 2025, the Republican polling firm Fabrizio Ward published a memo finding broad bipartisan support for routine childhood vaccines and warning that undermining them would cost votes.

The numbers are stark. Seventy-four percent of Americans say ensuring broad availability of Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines should be a priority. Nearly 70% say they would be more likely to vote for a congressional candidate who vows to preserve vaccine access over one who seeks to rescind it. And crucially, more than 50% of voters say they’d be less likely to support a candidate who doesn’t support vaccines, even if they align with that candidate on other issues.

In other words, silence on vaccines is becoming a dealbreaker for voters who would otherwise vote Republican.

Democratic candidates have wasted no time in turning the issue to their advantage. If Republicans come up short in November, there will be plenty of blame to go around — but this wound is self-inflicted.

The good news is that a self-inflicted wound is one we can heal ourselves. Republican candidates should address the measles resurgence by loudly promoting access to FDA-approved vaccines and insisting that families receive dependable information from their physicians.

Transition Plans After DOJ's Attack on Olmstead

  In The Politics of Autism, I discuss court cases involving the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

Trump does not care.  He despises people with disabilities.  His head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is a political hack who uses the r-word as a slur.

In June, the Department of Justice quietly released a memo pertaining to the landmark 1999 disability civil rights case Olmstead v. L.C.  DOJ stated it “will not rely upon the Olmstead Guidance in its enforcement” of the ADA, and that Olmstead is “not enforceable.”That precedent, the memo claimed without evidence, increases homelessness.

 

At Education Week,  Caitlynn Peetz Stephens interviews Vanderbilt Prof Meghan Burke:

How does Olmstead relate to K-12 special education?

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ... requires transition planning that is designed to start thinking about what supports are needed so that a student can have better post-school outcomes after leaving the special education system.

In the transition plan, there have to be goals related to postsecondary education or training ..., employment, and ..., if appropriate, ... independent living. So, independent living is commonly used for people who we think might need support to live in the community—somebody with an intellectual disability, or somebody with autism, or someone with multiple disabilities, who we think might need to learn some daily living skills—because ultimately, in special education, per IDEA, we want people to be living independently. Those skills could include things like how to pay your rent, how to keep a clean home, and so on.

What the DOJ is suggesting is that maybe that is no longer the goal for youth with disabilities to live in the community. It sends the message to the people in the community saying that a segregated setting is OK.

Right now, we’re really trying to meet the person where they’re at and build them up to the point where they could be living on their own. If that’s no longer necessarily the goal, then you could see schools saying, ‘Well, we don’t really need to work on those skills.’

What are your concerns about the DOJ guidance and its implications for K-12?

There’s a big divide between special education and adulthood. They’re almost two different worlds. But this bridge is so critical to making sure that youth are actually able to have positive outcomes into adulthood, and that bridge tends to be very shaky.

A lot of special education teachers don’t know a lot about adult disability services. It’s very difficult to navigate. It’s robust. It’s changing. It varies by state. And special education teachers often don’t get a lot of training about the different adult disability services available and what they mean. So that was my worry when the DOJ guidance came out: A special education teacher might see that and be like, ‘Oh, OK, so this is the new thing and this is how we should operate.’

But we have to be clear: The guidance doesn’t change IDEA. The [DOJ is] interpreting Olmstead differently. But, ultimately, our responsibility to our students continues to be to have high expectations, continues to be independent living, and that’s what we need to be educating families about and being committed to.”

More 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. 

Liz Szabo and  Chris Dall at CIDRAP:

Measles continues to rip through unvaccinated communities across the United States.

The virus has sickened at least 4,410 people this year, according to a report today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The total number of measles cases grew by 8%, or 330 cases, in just the past seven days. That’s more than the total number of measles cases in all of 2024, when the CDC confirmed 285 cases.

There have been 42 new measles outbreaks across the country this year. Of the confirmed cases, 96% have been in people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status.

The true number of measles cases is likely to be substantially larger, according to public health experts. Pennsylvania has reported six measles deaths, a much higher number than experts would predict based on the 1,260 cases in that state.

That’s because the expected mortality rate from measles ranges from one to three deaths per 1,000 infections. Based on those historic rates, infectious disease specialists say the true number of measles infections in Pennsylvania could be 6,000 or more.

The discrepancy could be due to underreporting of milder cases in people who don’t need to be hospitalized. In traditional communities hit hard by the measles, including the Amish or Mennonite communities, parents often take care of children with measles at home, rather than bring them to a doctor, who would report the case to the health department.

“Our detection of disease is only as good as our reporting,” said Robert Hopkins, MD, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

Why the Increase in Diagnoses?

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

Eric W. Dolan at PsyPost:

The medical and scientific communities are looking at the same rising numbers, but they interpret them in different ways. Authors like Frith and Croce argue that a portion of newly diagnosed people may not have the condition at all, and are being mislabeled at the cost of correct treatment. They suggest that diagnostic drift is pulling people with ADHD, complex trauma, or personality disorders into the autism spectrum.

Other researchers focus on the expansion of diagnostic boundaries in the 1990s and on shifting administrative practices. Several of these papers converge on a similar conclusion. Kim, Russell, Matson, Talantseva, and Ranjan each attribute most of the rising trend to some combination of better case-finding, financial incentives, expanded criteria, and a demographic shift toward adults and females. Notably, the review by Lyall and colleagues, which is frequently cited by those exploring environmental risk factors, explicitly attributes much of the reported increase to changes in reporting practices. The drop in the proportion of cases involving intellectual disability points in the same direction, though Russell and colleagues caution that an actual increase in autism incidence cannot be entirely ruled out.

At the same time, several of the exposures most often proposed in public debate, including childhood vaccines, prenatal pain relievers, and antidepressants, have now been examined in large cohorts and sibling-matched designs without finding support for a causal link. That narrows the range of biological explanations still in play, leaving rising factors like advanced parental age, maternal obesity, and systemic inflammation as the credible candidates for a modest increase in underlying risk. As science continues to refine how we measure both the environment and the human brain, the balance between shifting medical labels and biological changes will continue to come into sharper focus.

References

• The paper, “Individualized disability support schemes and their impact on autism diagnoses,” was authored by Maathumai Ranjan and Robert Breunig (2026) in the Journal of Health Economics.
• The paper, “The increasing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders,” was authored by Johnny L. Matson and Alison M. Kozlowski (2011) in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
• The paper, “Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children and Adolescents in the United States from 2021 to 2022,” was authored by Xiaofang Yan, Yanmei Li, Qishan Li, Qian Li, Guifeng Xu, Jinhua Lu, and Wenhan Yang (2024) in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
• The paper, “The Changing Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders,” was authored by Kristen Lyall, Lisa Croen, Julie Daniels, M. Daniele Fallin, Christine Ladd-Acosta, Brian K. Lee, Bo Y. Park, Nathaniel W. Snyder, Diana Schendel, Heather Volk, Gayle C. Windham, and Craig Newschaffer (2017) in the Annual Review of Public Health.
• The paper, “Global prevalence of autism: A systematic review update,” was authored by Jinan Zeidan, Eric Fombonne, Julie Scorah, Alaa Ibrahim, Maureen S. Durkin, Shekhar Saxena, Afiqah Yusuf, Andy Shih, and Mayada Elsabbagh (2022) in Autism Research.
• The paper, “Autism spectrum disorder: has it lost its meaning and is it leading to misdiagnosis?,” was authored by Uta Frith (2026) in Psychological Medicine.
• The paper, “Time trends in the male to female ratio for autism incidence: population based, prospectively collected, birth cohort study,” was authored by Caroline Fyfe, Henric Winell, Joseph Dougherty, David H Gutmann, Alexander Kolevzon, Natasha Marrus, Kristina Tedroff, Tychele N Turner, Lauren A Weiss, Benjamin H K Yip, Weiyao Yin, and Sven Sandin (2026) in The BMJ.
• The paper, “Time trends in autism diagnosis over 20 years: a UK population-based cohort study,” was authored by Ginny Russell, Sal Stapley, Tamsin Newlove-Delgado, Andrew Salmon, Rhianna White, Fiona Warren, Anita Pearson, and Tamsin Ford (2022) in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
• The paper, “Cumulative Incidence and Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder,” was authored by Young Shin Kim, Xiao Liu, Joshua Chang, Yun-Joo Koh, Jihyun Kim, Yuji Choi, Yoon Jae Cho, Eric Fombonne, and Bennett L. Leventhal (2026) in JAMA Pediatrics.
• The paper, “The global prevalence of autism spectrum disorder: A three-level meta-analysis,” was authored by Oksana I. Talantseva, Raisa S. Romanova, Ekaterina M. Shurdova, Tatiana A. Dolgorukova, Polina S. Sologub, Olga S. Titova, Daria F. Kleeva, and Elena L. Grigorenko (2023) in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
• The paper, “Diagnostic inflation in autism spectrum disorder: an epistemological and methodological reappraisal,” was authored by Luigi Croce and Irene Fusaro (2026) in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
• The paper, “Environmental pollutants as risk factors for autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies,” was authored by Tatiana Duque-Cartagena, Marcello Dala Bernardina Dalla, Eduardo Mundstock, Felipe Kalil Neto, Sergio Angelo Rojas Espinoza, Sara Kvitko de Moura, Gabriele Zanirati, Alexandre Vontobel Padoin, Juan Gabriel Piñeros Jimenez, Airton Tetelbom Stein, Wilson Cañon-Montañez, and Rita Mattiello (2024) in BMC Public Health.
• The paper, “Prenatal environmental risk factors for autism spectrum disorder and their potential mechanisms,” was authored by Chloe Love, Luba Sominsky, Martin O’Hely, Michael Berk, Peter Vuillermin, and Samantha L. Dawson (2024) in BMC Medicine.
• The paper, “The growing challenge of autism spectrum disorder: a comprehensive review of etiology, diagnosis, and therapy in children,” was authored by Chunyuan Wang and Hong Wang (2024) in All Life.
• The paper, “Association Between First MMR Vaccination Before Age 2 Years and Childhood Autism in a U.S. EHR Cohort of 2.5 Million Children,” was authored by Todd L. Burstain, Dale Jacques, and Jennifer M. Burstain (2026) in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
• The paper, “Neonatal Medical Male Circumcision and Child Autism Diagnosis,” was authored by Monica McGrath, Xiuhong Li, Lisa P. Jacobson, Bennett Leventhal, Judy L. Aschner, Brennan Baker, Karla Cardoso Garcia, Aisha S. Dickerson, Amy J. Elliott, Jody Ganiban, Amanda Goodrich, Daniel B. Horton, Melinda Jarnecke, Sarah Keim, Brian K. Lee, Courtney D. Lynch, Mark Klebanoff, Abdul-Manaf Mutaru, Ruby H. N. Nguyen, Rebecca J. Schmidt, Hyeong-Moo Shin, Lauren C. Shuffrey, Jonathan L. Slaughter, Annemarie Stroustrup, Zhaozhong Zhu, Aaron A. R. Tobian, and M. Kate Grabowski (2026) in JAMA Pediatrics.
• The paper, “Prenatal exposure to maternal depression and antidepressants and neurodevelopmental outcomes: A population cohort study,” was authored by Saraid McIlvride, Neha Rao, Sarjit Singh, Scott M. Nelson, Jill P. Pell, and Michael Fleming (2026) in PLOS Medicine.

4,410 Measles Cases

  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 October 15, 2026, 4,410 confirmed* measles cases were reported in the United States in 2026. Among these, 4,392 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 18 measles cases were reported among international visitors to the United States.

There have been 42 new outbreaks** reported in 2026, and 96% of confirmed cases (4,228 of 4,410) are outbreak-associated (2,844 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.

Provider Favors Licensing

 The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of autism service providers.  Private equity firms now own many of them.   Insurance mandates and Medicaid spending have contributed to the growth trend.

In 1971, George Stigler wrote that "regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit."  By seeking requirements such as occupational licensing, incumbents seek to limit competition.

Breaking News ABA:

Centria Autism told Florida’s applied behavior analysis (ABA) task force on October 5 that the state should license every provider location, charge each one $1,000 a year for inspections, and reduce Medicaid payments at locations that fail. The company operates in 11 states but does not provide ABA in Florida, according to the Florida Phoenix.

Shevaun Harris, secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which runs Florida Medicaid, chairs the task force but does not vote. She said she found it “interesting” that a provider would advocate licensing ABA facilities. “I just want to note our agency has been very intrigued by that concept,” she said, according to the Florida Phoenix. “We’ve had the same conversation here at the agency,” she added, citing “individuals going into people’s homes of very vulnerable kids.”

Florida recorded $6.57 billion in Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) payments for ABA from 2023 through 2025, the highest state total in federal data AHCA presented in August. Lawmakers created the panel in 2026 to recommend changes to the program, from authorization limits to provider billing standards.

Private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners acquired Centria in 2019 in a deal reported at $415 million. The 74’s September analysis of federal Medicaid payment data ranked Centria first among the ABA providers it identified, with more than $440 million in payments recorded from 2019 through 2024. CEO David Harbour, who made the licensing pitch, said it could help “create standardization around the services,” according to the Phoenix.

AHCA separately asked whether required technician supervision should rise from at least 5% of service hours to 10% to 20%. Minutes approved at the meeting also document discussion of limits on approved hours. These remain proposals, rather than final task force recommendations.