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The nation's top health agency is looking to pinpoint the cause of autism
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During President Trump's cabinet meeting yesterday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his department will soon know what causes autism
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as diagnoses of the disorder in the United States have increased exponentially over the last few decades
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Now the autism rates have gone from our most recent numbers we think are going to be about 1 in 31
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on one in twice so they're going up again from one in ten thousand when i was a kid
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and we are going at your direction we are going to know by september we've launched a massive
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uh testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the
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world by september we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be we'll be able to
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limit those exposures. According to the CDC, about one in 36 children now has a diagnosis
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of autism spectrum disorder, compared to about one in 150 in 2000. Scientists do not know exactly
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what causes it, but they are researching numerous environmental, genetic, and biological possibilities
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including an infection or contact with chemicals in the environment, problems with brain connections
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and difficulties with metabolism. Kennedy has reportedly hired David Geyer, a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement who has spent years attempting
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to tie mercury in vaccines to autism to lead the research
