How Donald Trump Redefines Autism and Ignores Real Health Threats.
It was a scene that has become increasingly common in the new America: Donald Trump sits beside his controversial Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on a stage, speaks of a “synthetically triggered autism epidemic,” and presents the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) commission as a bulwark against a supposedly corrupt public health system. A moment in which science, politics, and ideology collide – and where, in the end, truth falls by the wayside.
Trump claims: Autism “has to be artificially induced.” In the past, it was “1 in 10,000,” now it’s “1 in 31.” That “can’t be natural,” he says. The sentence comes off casually, almost offhand – but its impact is profound: It joins a series of populist assaults on medical reality – fueled by myths, misinformation, and a deep distrust of science and education.
A Scientifically Debunked Claim
The notion that autism is caused by “external influences” – such as vaccines or food additives – stems from a conspiracy theory that emerged from the fraudulent study by British doctor Andrew Wakefield in 1998 – a study that has long since been disproven. Thousands of studies worldwide confirm: There is no causal link between vaccines and autism.
Nonetheless, Trump continues to repeat this narrative, flanked by a Health Secretary who has been mobilizing anti-vaccine activists for years. It is a calculated play on fear – a political attack on public trust in medical institutions, dressed up as care for children.
Symbolic Policy Without Consequence
Trump presents himself as a revealer of truth. His commission, he says, aims to combat the causes – including by “phasing out” artificial food dyes. Eight of them are to disappear, including petroleum-based additives like Red 40 or Yellow 5. The FDA had previously warned of possible behavioral impacts in children – but not of autism.
The truth is: These measures are cosmetic. They are designed to signal decisiveness, while elsewhere systematically dismantling the very structures that actually protect children's health.
The Contradiction of Coal Policy
Because while Trump speaks about food dyes, he simultaneously restarts coal plants. He lifts limits on mercury and fine particles, weakens the Environmental Protection Agency, and allows emissions that – according to the WHO – contribute to asthma, neurological disorders, premature births, and cancer – especially in children.
The contradiction could hardly be greater: Here, concern over dyes. There, the mass return of toxic industry. Here, warnings about “over-medicated children.”
There, the rollback of scientific standards. An Ideological Health Narrative.
The MAHA Commission names four factors in its report that are said to harm American children: ultra-processed foods, environmental toxins, digital behavior, and “overmedicalization.” What is missing: clear policy recommendations, scientific evidence, a serious look at causes such as poverty, structural racism, air pollution, and access to early childhood education.
What remains is a narrative: The industry is to blame. The system is rigged. Only Trump knows the truth. Only Trump protects our children. It is a politically charged definition of health – one driven less by medicine than by power.
Autism as a Political Instrument
Trump’s statements on autism rates are part of a broader strategy: They fit into an authoritarian-populist style that simplifies scientific complexity, fuels distrust, and casts himself as the savior – against a “system” that allegedly protects nothing.
But those who truly want to protect children need more than slogans. They need policies that keep the air clean, make education accessible, support families, and fight disease not by politicizing it – but through knowledge instead of ideology.
Trump’s campaign against autism is no health policy revolution. It is a relapse into the dark patterns of a politics that prefers to demonize symptoms rather than address causes. A politics that sells lies as truth – and leaves the most vulnerable behind in their uncertainty.
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