10/13/2025
Thank you Mat Auryn 🙏
I’m not gonna pick apart what RFK Jr. said, digest it, and then regurgitate the highlights.
Instead, me and you are just gonna talk.
Theoretically, they want to find the cause of autism to prevent the suffering of future people, right? Right.
But if they really cared about ending the suffering, you know what they’d do?
They’d protect and invest in special education training for teachers.
But instead, they’re canceling grants and cutting funds.
If this was really about ending the suffering,
they’d expand and protect Medicaid waivers so autistic people can keep their community-based supports.
But I’ll let you take a guess about what's happening instead.
Families of autistic people who need 24/7 care to keep themselves alive are FINALLY feeling seen and heard. And on a conceptual level, I can understand why.
But what we ALL need to understand is that finding a cause doesn’t build you a respite center.
It doesn’t pay for your child’s hours of therapy.
And it doesn’t provide you advocacy when your state cuts services.
And for the sake of discussion, let’s say ge***al modification and over-the-counter painkillers do cause autism…
You can’t spend an “I told you so” on respite care.
You can’t use it to pay for therapy, or transportation, and certainly not for housing.
We don’t have to agree on anything else in order to agree on the fact that autistic people will need support to do the whole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing.
