RFK Jr. Slams Brakes On Autism Promise Under Grilling By CNN’s Kaitlan Collins

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his promise to find the causes of autism by September, which he promptly recanted in favor of a new goal.

Kennedy sat for an extended interview with Collins on Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, during which the anchor pressed him on his recent testimony before Congress, where he reiterated his promise.

But as soon as Collins asked him about it, Kennedy doubled his timeline and softened the promise to more of a hope:

COLLINS: But this would be in September, when you said that you would be able to determine what the cause of autism is. Is that still the timeline that you are sticking with?

KENNEDY JR.: We will — we will have some studies completed by September, and those studies will mainly be replication studies of studies that have already been done. We’re also deploying new teams of scientists, 15 groups of scientists. We’re going to send those grants out to bid within three weeks.

COLLINS: Why would you replicate studies that have been done?

KENNEDY JR.: Because the only way you can get good science is through replication. If you don’t have replication, you don’t know whether other scientists looking at the same data will arrive at the same conclusion.

Good science always includes replication. In fact, we’re changing the procedures at NIH, so that up to 20 percent of the funding at NIH is for replication. If you don’t have replication, you have incentives to cheat, and there’s a lot of cheating that goes on in science.

COLLINS: OK, but some people — well, some people might dispute that.

But looking at your April 10th comments, when you were inside the Cabinet meeting, you said, “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”

KENNEDY JR.: Well, we’ll have some of the information to get — the most solid information, it will probably take us another six months.

COLLINS: OK. So, parents should not expect to know what causes autism by September anymore?

KENNEDY JR.: Well, we’ll see. We’re going to — as I said, we’re going to replicate some of the studies that have already been done that look like sound studies, and we’ll know a lot from those, and then we’ll know a lot more afterwards.

COLLINS: But not the definitive answer by September?

KENNEDY JR.: It depends.

COLLINS: Just to be clear, because it matters.

KENNEDY JR.: It depends what those replicable studies show.

COLLINS: OK. And then what do you expect to happen six months after that? You mentioned something, after next six months.

KENNEDY JR.: I expect we will know the answers of the etiology of autism.

COLLINS: OK. So that timeline is moving from September to six months after September?

KENNEDY JR.: As I said, we’re going to begin to have a lot of information by September. We’re not going to stop the studies in September. We’re going to be definitive. And the more definitive you are, the more it drives public policy.

COLLINS: OK. So that would put us at what, March next year, you say, you’ll know the cause of it?

KENNEDY JR.: As I said, it’s about six months after September, a lot of these studies will begin coming back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: A notable answer there.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.