Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says a study on autism he spearheaded in April had found “interventions” that could be causing the neuro-developmental disorder.

He said the results of the study would be released next month.

Kennedy made the announcement at a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump, who had asked him for a status update on the study.

Trump calls autism a 'tremendous horror show'

“Autism is such a tremendous horror show – what's happening in our country and some of the countries,” Trump said. “How are you doing on that?”

“We will have an announcement as promised in September,” Kennedy said. “We’re finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism.”

Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has linked vaccines to autism, added that he would be addressing the interventions in September. The idea of vaccines causing autism has been disputed by multiple scientific studies, and it has been rejected as a cause by all leading scientific organizations.

Trump responded by saying it would be “such a big day.”

“I'm looking forward to that day, because there's something wrong when you see the kind of numbers that you have today versus 20 years ago,” Trump said.

In a report April 15, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2022, 1 in 31 children were diagnosed with autism by age 8 in the United States, an increase from 1 in 36 children in 2020. The prevalence of autism among boys was 1 in 20, and the 2022 rate is five times higher than it was in 2000.

One day after the study was released, Kennedy announced that the U.S. National Institutes of Health would undertake a “series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it" and set a September deadline.

"This is coming from an environmental toxin, and somebody made it and put that environmental toxin into our air or water or medicines or food," Kennedy said April 16 at the HHS headquarters in Washington.

Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed based on challenges with social skills, communication and repetitive behaviors. It is a spectrum, meaning symptoms vary widely; a percentage are unable to communicate at all, and others are highly successful in some areas of life.

Though Kennedy has characterized the increase in autism rates as an “epidemic running rampant,” the CDC researchers in the report have attributed the increase to “increased identification” among very young children and groups that had not been identified.

The CDC says some people with autism spectrum disorder have "a known difference, such as a genetic condition. Other causes are not yet known."

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: RFK Jr. has made big promises on autism. Here's the latest

Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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