On August 22, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled a sweeping $50 million federal initiative to investigate the environmental causes of autism, pledging to gather "the most credible scientists from all over the world" and promising answers within a matter of months. The announcement, which Kennedy described as unprecedented, has plunged the autism research community into uncertainty, sparking fierce debate over scientific independence, transparency, and the future of public health policy.
For some, Kennedy’s plan signals a bold new chapter—one that could finally illuminate how genes and environmental exposures interact to shape autism risk. But for others, especially those whose careers have been upended by recent funding cuts and agency shakeups, the initiative raises more questions than it answers. Among them is Erin McCanlies, an epidemiologist who spent nearly two decades at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) studying how parental exposure to workplace chemicals might increase the risk of autism in their children. Just three weeks before Kennedy’s announcement, her entire division was eliminated, and millions of dollars in federal funding for autism research—especially on environmental factors—were slashed.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing!” McCanlies exclaimed to her husband after hearing Kennedy’s radio interview, according to ProPublica. Her research, conducted in collaboration with Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a pioneering environmental epidemiologist at UC Davis, has contributed vital insights over the years. Their 2012 study, for instance, found that parents of children with autism were more likely to have been exposed to solvents like lacquer, varnish, and xylene on the job—chemicals common in industries ranging from painting to healthcare. Later studies expanded the picture: a 2019 paper showed women exposed to solvents during pregnancy and the preceding three months were 1.5 times more likely to have a child with autism, while a 2023 genetic analysis identified 31 gene variants that heightened risk when combined with such exposures.
These findings, and others funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, have steadily built a case that autism risk is shaped by a complex interplay of genetics and environment. Research has linked autism not only to workplace chemicals but also to air pollution, certain pesticides, BPA, diesel exhaust, and so-called "forever chemicals" like PFOA and PFNA. At least one factor—folic acid, a B vitamin—has been shown to reduce risk, with more than a dozen studies confirming its protective effect.
Despite this progress, Kennedy has long been a polarizing figure in autism science. For two decades, he has promoted the thoroughly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, dismissing contrary evidence by alleging widespread collusion among vaccine makers, researchers, and regulators. In a June 2025 interview with Tucker Carlson, Kennedy declared, "We need to stop trusting the experts," and accused previous studies exonerating vaccines of being tainted by "trickery" and self-interest. He vowed that under his leadership, the new initiative would deliver "real studies" for the first time.
This rhetoric has alarmed many in the research community. "Kennedy has never expressed an open mind, an open attitude towards what are the fundamental causes of autism," said Helen Tager-Flusberg, a psychologist at Boston University and founder of a coalition of scientists concerned about the direction of federal autism research. The coalition’s June statement criticized the initiative’s lack of transparency and Kennedy’s tendency to "casually ignore decades of high quality research." According to CNN and ProPublica, more than 50 autism-related studies have lost funding under Kennedy’s oversight, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has canceled over $40 million in grants for autism research. Some grants, including those to leading universities and projects examining air pollution, have been reinstated following legal challenges, but the future remains uncertain.
The situation is further complicated by sweeping policy changes at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration. As ProPublica reports, the EPA has rolled back regulations on air pollution and chemicals linked to autism, reversed bans on solvents like trichloroethylene (TCE) and methylene chloride, and dismantled its Office of Research and Development. Over 2,300 EPA employees have left amid early retirement programs, and grants for research into wildfire pollution’s neurological impacts have been abruptly cut. These rollbacks are occurring even as studies continue to show that environmental exposures can increase autism risk—and that millions of pregnant women could be affected by rising pollution.
Within NIOSH and HHS, Kennedy has presided over deep staff cuts, describing the reductions as trimming "unhealthy fat." The reorganization has consolidated several divisions into a new entity, the Administration for a Healthy America, with the stated aim of saving taxpayers $1.8 billion annually. Yet, as ProPublica notes, critical research programs have been gutted, and many veteran scientists, including McCanlies, have been forced into early retirement or left on administrative leave. The loss of institutional knowledge and expertise, critics say, could delay progress by decades.
Transparency has emerged as a central concern. Unlike typical NIH processes, the review and selection of projects for the new $50 million Autism Data Science Initiative have not followed standard protocols. The names of reviewers, selection criteria, and terms for grant recipients have not been made public. An NIH video for applicants claims the process was "designed to ensure integrity, fairness and transparency," but many researchers remain skeptical. HHS has not clarified who will make final grant selections or how conflicts of interest will be handled. As Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, put it, "To take money away from all these areas of need to focus on a question that the HHS director considers high priority seems not scientific and not the way that science is done."
Yet, even some critics are applying for the new funding, hoping to salvage progress despite their misgivings. Hertz-Picciotto, though lamenting Kennedy’s "shutting down good studies," has submitted a project proposal and plans to hire McCanlies as a consultant if approved. For McCanlies, the situation is bittersweet. She told ProPublica, "I don’t trust him at all," referring to Kennedy, but voiced confidence in her longtime colleague. Her final study at NIOSH, now available as a preprint, found that parental exposure to plastics was "consistently and significantly associated" with lower cognitive scores, increased aberrant behaviors, and deficits in basic life skills among children with autism. The research also linked higher autism severity and weaker daily living skills to ethylene oxide exposure—a chemical now subject to loosened EPA restrictions.
As the September deadline for Kennedy’s promised answers approaches, he has acknowledged that his original six-month timeline was "overly optimistic," now suggesting that "some initial indicator answers" might be available, with more definitive results in another six months. Meanwhile, researchers stress that autism is not a single condition but a spectrum, with diverse causes and symptoms. The loss of funding and expertise, they warn, could set back the field just as it was beginning to unravel these complexities.
In the end, the fate of autism research—and the families it aims to help—may hinge on whether Kennedy’s initiative can balance bold ambition with scientific rigor, transparency, and the hard-won lessons of decades past.
