RFK Jr.’s dehumanizing comments about autistic kids infuriate moms | Opinion
Maverick is magic.
At four years old, he gently pets flowers and belly laughs when a strong wind blows. He loves to hug his big brother.
Maverick is also severely autistic, and according to our new U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he’s part of a group of children who “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date,” as Kennedy said on Wednesday.
“Maverick is poetry, man, you can’t even fathom the joy and pureness that is my child,” said Maverick’s mom, Mickaylyn Howard-Conrad of Lexington, who thrummed between rage and tears as she talked about Kennedy’s Wednesday press briefing in which he described autism as preventable, due to a mysterious environmental toxin.
“We call him Magic Mav. Just because he’s not measuring up in the way you want him to doesn’t mean he’s not measurable.”
What makes parents like Howard-Conrad apoplectic is that Kennedy talks about finding a cause of autism — which most scientists believe has a complex genetic component — while at the same time the Trump administration is cutting vital services to help their children improve.
“I don’t care about the cause,” she said. “You’re jerking what little help autistic children have. They’re pulling out the rug and then act like they’re doing them a favor.”
Kennedy’s briefing was held to discuss recent autism numbers. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in 31 children is now diagnosed as being on the spectrum. As a well-known anti-vaxxer, Kennedy has spent years touting a discredited link between vaccines and autism.
But Maverick didn’t get any shots because he was diagnosed so early.
Shortly after that, one of his doctors said to Howard-Conrad: “You have two children, one is a dandelion and will thrive anywhere,” she said. “Maverick is an orchid — he’s a little more particular, he needs more attention and care, but if we get his greenhouse setting just right, he can be juts as beautiful and magical as any other flower.
“He wouldn’t put limitations on Maverick or on me so I would stay hopeful and push Maverick,” she said, starting to cry.
“That’s the thing,—(Kennedy) just capped every austistic child, he put them in a box and said they’re going to fail.”
‘Successful, autistic people’
Kennedy’s remarks didn’t just stereotype kids like Maverick. They failed to recognize that autism spans a wide spectrum containing millions of people who pay taxes, go on dates, and yes, write poetry.
Jessica Faulhaber, the office manager and a chef La Bonne Vie catering, describes herself as on the spectrum. She also has two sons who range across it. Her elder son is in a job training program after graduating from Fayette County schools with excellent services that may be cut. Her younger son is still in high school and still receiving services.
“My kids and myself are living proof there are plenty of successful autistic people,” she said. For example, co-president Elon Musk has described himself as having Asperger’s, an outdated term for mild autism.
“More autistic people need to come to the forefront because that’s why they’re successful— they’re detail oriented, they know what they’re doing.”
Jessica Frye’s son also graduated from Fayette County schools with special education services and is now pursuing his own DJ’ing business at parties and wedding.
“When he (Kennedy) said autism destroys families, I took it as a slap in the face,” Frye said. “It hasn’t destroyed our family, it’s made it better.”
The Fryes have four children, one of whom is autistic, and it’s given her other three kids a better outlook on life.
“We don’t see it as a tragedy, it’s more of a gift for us,” she said. “He’s creative, intelligent, funny, he deserves all the same things anyone else should have.
“He’s just as valuable as anyone else.”
Better diagnosis means more cases
Sara Spragens is president of the Autism Society of the Bluegrass. She says it’s clear the higher numbers for autism are related to better diagnosis, especially in adulthood, of people across the spectrum, many of whom are higher functioning.
Autism has suffered from a lack of research funding, both into its causes and the best resources to help families. But one of the biggest helps, she said, is Medicaid expansion, which has allowed millions more people to get help.
Medicaid is due for stringent cuts to help Trump continue tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
“All these things RFK Jr. said— you can’t put any kind of blanket statement about anybody, especially people with autism, or any disability,” Spragens said. “He really diminished the value and gifts, implied some blame on families about that we caused something maybe by getting vaccines.”
That’s the strange, long shadow of eugenics that Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement casts; from Trump’s talk of “bad genes” in the immigrants he wants to get rid of to Kennedy’s implications that children with severe autism can’t be functional members of society.
“This is eugenics,” said Howard-Conrad. “In Nazi Germany, they started with the severely disabled. One hundred years ago, Maverick would have been locked up in a hospital.”
She’d like to see Kennedy — who survived an addiction to heroin — worry about how parents are going to help their autistic children with less resources.
“Finally, our children are getting some attention, but this glimmer of hope is just met with this inhumane perspective,” she said, starting to cry again. “The way he talks about the autistic community is dehumanizing and dangerous, but I’m hoping people will step back and say we won’t accept this.
“I have never been more ready to just fight like hell than I am right now, for my child and for every autistic child out there.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "RFK Jr.’s dehumanizing comments about autistic kids infuriate moms | Opinion."
