Summary

RFK Jr. is using private medical records to create a registry of people with autism in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health is helping to collect private medical records from government and commercial databases, including “prescription records from pharmacies, lab testing, and genomics records from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, private insurance claims, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers.”

Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, has made the study of autism one of HHS’s primary goals. He has called autism “preventable” and claimed “he can find a cure for the condition by September.”

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
      70·
      1 month ago

      In 1936, three years after taking power, the Nazis ordered families with a mentally or physically handicapped person to send them to nearby hospitals for the best treatment. Soon after, they started receiving letters that their loved one had passed away.

      The first to notice the pattern was the clergy, who realized that the families in their congregations who had vulnerable members were ALL getting these letters, and they rightfully concluded that a euthanasia program was going on.

      Many spoke out from the pulpit, demanding an end to this atrocity, and Hitler responded, saying he was shocked at this revelation, and promising to end it. He didn’t, of course, he just buried it, expanded it, and evolved it into the Holocaust.

      To Nazis, the best way to reduce the statistics of autistic people, is to reduce the numbers of autistic people, and the first step in doing that is to compile their names.

      Of course, the real issue is HOW are they going to reduce the autistic population? Considering how much MAGA openly admires the Nazis, it’s not hard to make an educated guess.

      • werewolfborg@ttrpg.network
        19·
        1 month ago

        They don’t even have to kill anyone on purpose. They just have to force people to undergo experimental autism cures, which have historically killed patients. An example of this would be chelation therapy, aka using the medication used to remove heavy metals from the body under the (unconfirmed) assumption that autism is caused by heavy metals.

        If a database is good enough to connect pharmacy records, medical records, and even health info from smart watches (which a doctor or insurance company would not have access to) then it would need to link patient info together in a way that’s not as anonymous as they claim it to be. Theoretically, this could be enough information to force someone into doing these experimental treatments in order to keep their driver’s license (even if they’re otherwise high functioning enough to not be hospitalized) or force someone to be hospitalized with promises of being taught to be more independent later down the line.

    • Pyr@lemmy.ca
      14·
      1 month ago

      The only result they will find is that autism diagnosis happens more often in areas where it’s socially acceptable o go see a doctor for concerns about mental health. Deep red states will have “less” autism because hardly anyone will be going to the doctor and expressing concerns that they may have autism, and then they just go undiagnosed.

  • febra@lemmy.world
    28·
    1 month ago

    This is just them preparing the launchpad for further mass surveillance programs. First, they’ll poke around with innocent sounding programs, testing the waters to see how much data they can sniff out of different private databases without anyone noticing. They’ll claim it’s for the good of autistic people. They’ll enact legislation to further cement their practices of data gathering. If their proof of concept turns out to be delivering results, they’ll keep going.

    Slowly they’ll keep tracking all kinds of people they deem as “ill”. They’ll start with vilified minorities that can’t fight back. Most likely trans people. Then the rest of the queer community. Of course, they’ll claim there’s no ill intent in gathering this data, after all, it’s not like they’re going to commit any vile acts.

    And slowly but surely, once the public debate around these minorities turns even more sour, you’ll have them enacting all kinds of laws, and these databases will prove to be quite handy tools in aiding their goals.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 month ago

      The school Hans Asperger sent autistic children to:

      Am Spiegelgrund was divided into a reform school and a children’s ward, where sick and disabled adolescents were unwitting subjects of medical experiments and victims of nutritional and psychological abuse. Some died by lethal injection and gas poisoning; others by disease, starvation, exposure to the elements, and “accidents” relating to their conditions. The brains of up to 800 victims were preserved in jars and housed in the hospital for decades.

    • Razzazzika@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 month ago

      Wonder if they’re gonna rebrand Aspbergers again as ‘the people useful to society’ again.

    • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
      216·
      1 month ago

      Yes. The nazis tried to cure autism… (/s if it’s not obvious).

      Seriously, why are you comparing this to Nazis.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
        14·
        1 month ago

        Why would you not? Unless you were sure there were checks and balances in places to ensure it doesn’t happen. Say, something like, not tracking disabled people, and/or, not abandoning judicial process and habeas corpus, and/or respect for legal precedence and norms that affirm trust in the process

        • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          1 month ago

          It does, to me, seem like a violation of privacy (looks like patients have no consent in whether their private data is collected).

          But, personally, I would think there would have been better, non-public ways of doing this if he really wanted to exterminate austistic people, etc.

          It being public, makes me think he wants PR, etc and wants to be the dude to cure autism.

        • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
          17·
          1 month ago

          Lool thanks for the diss, I will try to keep my head held up high. Unless it was meant for the original comment, then I can forget about this ;(

        • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
          211·
          1 month ago

          I cannot read the entire transcript, but from what I did read, it seems to be talking about how Nazis slaughtered children with autism.

          Maybe you can draw the conclusion that he (rfk) is collecting data on autistic people so that he can slaughter them too, but that seems very far fetched doesn’t it?

          If I’m missing something important from what I didn’t read, please let me know.

          • OmegaMan@lemmings.world
            13·
            1 month ago

            This administration is already sending innocent people to a concentration camp indefinitely and without a trial.

            That seemed farfetched not too long ago.

            • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
              13·
              1 month ago

              I don’t know much about this, but just wanted to thank you for continuing the discussion even though I can’t myself because of a lack of knowlege here.

              Others prefer insults 🥹

          • die444die@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            1 month ago

            No, it does not seem far fetched. Look at the shit this administration is doing and wake the fuck up.

  • frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io
    16·
    1 month ago

    OK, how are they getting consent for this from the subjects? I do basic research with tissue from patients and if they change their mind and revoke consent, we are legally obligated to destroy any remaining tissue or data.

  • frostysauce@lemmy.world
    135·
    1 month ago

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is using private medical records to create a registry of people with autism in the United States.

    That’s a pretty big claim for which The New Republic cited absolutely no source. This is bullshit, I hate the Administration as much as anyone here but I’m not falling for this.

    • polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      24·
      1 month ago

      Here’s a different source for you.

      The National Institutes of Health will begin collecting Americans’ private health records as part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s controversial plan to discover a cause and a cure for autism. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told a panel of experts about the plan this week.

      The NIH plans to gather information from a wide range of private sources, including pharmacy chains, hospitals and wearable devices with health sensors, like smartwatches.

      “The idea of the platform is that the existing data resources are often fragmented and difficult to obtain. The NIH itself will often pay multiple times for the same data resource,” Bhattacharya told the panel, according to The Guardian. “Even data resources that are within the federal government are difficult to obtain.”

      The NIH did not return a request for comment.

      Kennedy has made autism research a central pillar of his role as America’s official health advocate. He has made a number of conspiratorial, anti-science claims, including that childhood vaccinations could cause autism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

      Earlier this month, he called autism an “epidemic” and vowed to find an “environmental toxin” responsible for the disorder by September.

      “Overall autism is increasing in prevalence at an alarming rate,” Kennedy told reporters at the time. “We’re going to get back to it with an answer to the American people very, very quickly.”

      He further described autism as “a preventable disease.”

      […]

      Bhattacharya, the NIH director, also has a controversial background in the medical community, questioning early on the lethality of COVID-19 and being a vocal opponent to lockdown mandates.

  • Donkter@lemmy.world
    231·
    1 month ago

    What’s crazy is that it’s perfect. Getting rid of autistic people is exactly the intellectual purging that fascists want when they get into power.

    I know not every autistic person is “an intellectual” but many transgressive artists and radical leftist college professors are autistic.

    • kobra@lemm.ee
      2111·
      1 month ago

      Yes. They laid it out with Project 2025 and a staggering amount of people voted for it.

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
            413·
            1 month ago

            Ahh of course. Cause feelings about other people is far simpler than attempting understanding.

            Don’t let reality get in your way of your desired scapegoats. A strategy much loved in the current year.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          18·
          1 month ago

          And plenty still heard about it and instead of doing an ounce of actual research, they wrote it off as propaganda. Because it was just “too crazy to be true.”

        • Ronno@feddit.nlEnglish
          6·
          1 month ago

          I don’t buy that. I live on the other side of the planet and I know what project 2025 is and its key action points. It’s not just foreign media that were reporting on it. I also watch some US late night shows, especially when a major event like an election is about to happen. Most late night shows also discussed project 2025 at length.

    • febra@lemmy.world
      10·
      1 month ago

      You’re already living under fascism at this point. You just haven’t woken up yet, because they didn’t get to your door. Yet. The sooner you wake up the better.

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
      10·
      1 month ago

      The trick here is they don’t actually care if it’s autistics or not. They just want want to create another “other” for society to Target. So you’ll get them blasting this on news all over the United States of America " see this perfectly normal looking heartbeat, this is the autism heartbeat. We needed to put whoever this terrible person is in whatever terrible position we’re going to put them in".

      It’s just like sending people to El Salvador with mom tattoos. They don’t care if they’re in a gang or not.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 month ago

      It’ll be suddenly revealed it’s a general health tracking database, and you’ll be denied healthcare coverage if you’re “not doing your part”, will be used to monitor women’s menstrual cycle to figure out who’s having “illegal abortions”, you’ll be fired for not waking up at 4:30AM to stroke the ego of the CEO, etc., all thanks to Palantir…

    • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      To me, this suggests that if you’re diagnosed with autism, they’ll scrutinize your lab, pharmacy & smart watch records.