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By Alfonso Julián Camacho
A Perspective
This fall the president found himself face to face with a scandal involving the sex trafficking of underage girls. He needed (another) distraction. In bursts the administration’s clown, the FDA, with the perfect – and perfectly silly – new diversion. “The cause of autism,” it bellowed, “…is Tylenol!”
Granted, drugs with adverse side effects are a real thing. In the 1950s and 60s, babies were born armless after their mothers were prescribed Thalidomide for morning sickness. It was a horrible situation and a national scandal for the reckless drug companies, but no one confused side effects with neurodiversity. Babies born with phocomelia were diagnosed as such. The mothers were not judged and the drug was rightfully banned.
Were it so simple today. Our erstwhile Secretary of Health and Human Services has once again done something unhealthy and a disservice to autistic humans. Robert Kennedy, Jr. wants us to believe that pulling the popular pain medicine from our shelves will magically end autism. And shame on all those reckless mothers who saddled their children with autism because they had a headache!
Secretary Kennedy is the headache. His utterly reckless quackery regarding the misframing of side effects as the cause of neurodiversity distracts from the real effects of Tylenol. His ignorant bluster about autism has already undone years of work understanding the condition and attempts to educate society.
I am an autistic person. I consider myself a valuable member of society, not the unfortunate byproduct of Tylenol or a bubbling caldron of Eye of Newt. I have planted a tree and written books. I volunteer and study. I create, I rest, I play. I have a column in the national champion college newspaper.
RFK Jr.’s Tylenol smokescreen pulls the spotlight off the progress autistic people have made
in American society and puts it back where it does no good. Framing autism as something caused by Tylenol erases autism identity and carves a slippery slope towards eugenics by presenting us as flawed and damaged rather than differently abled. We are not living tragedies to be mourned or avoided at all costs.
Kennedy’s cringy ploy is irritating for folks like me but can be devastating to the mothers of autistic children. All over the world autism mothers are being told they are to blame for their children’s neurodivergence. A chilling guilt will now haunt legions of mothers who took acetaminophen just as fictitious unloving “Refrigerator Mothers” were coldly blamed for their children’s autism diagnoses in the 1950s and ‘60s. This discredited attempt to blame moms did enormous damage, but probably helped society assuage its own guilt for not supporting autistic children and their families.
No mas!
American autism mothers refuse to be blamed again. I call my relentlessly loving mom a “fireplace mother.” She is not to blame for my neurodivergence any more than rising egg prices. Autism mothers everywhere deserve respect, support, and resources. They are amazing, and blaming them is unscientific, unkind and undeserved.
Rather than serve as the curtain hiding away files, Secretary Kennedy and his coven of witch doctors need to stop using autism as the little birdy to make America once again look away from the frantic tantrums of a grown man whose time has come. They need to meet a few autistic folks like me. We have real game when given a chance to play. Rather than being used as pawns we need support. A little can go a long way.
Resources are needed and hard to come by. Autistics often have comorbidities that require medical attention. Seizures, leaky gut syndrome, allergies, asthma, enterocolitis, mitochondrial dysfunction and others need to be researched, treated and cured. Parents of children with autism deserve attention, research and solutions rather than the side eye.
Let’s hope Mr. Kennedy’s performance as the court jester of America ends soon so he can focus on ignored research, hidden claims against the CDC, poisonous foods in supermarkets, cancer-causing cosmetics and everything else that keeps America sick. There is a lot of cleanup to do instead of hiding skeletons in closets.
Perhaps his sensational announcement served its purpose. After all, here I am writing about Tylenol rather than Epstein, the poor economy or plunging presidential approval polls. Well played, sir.
You win this news cycle, so now you can knock off this nonsense. My head hurts and no amount of Tylenol will help.
