By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact, KFF Health News

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attracted notice — and in some quarters, outrage — for remarks about autism, a topic he’s clashed with scientists about for years.

Kennedy held an April 16 press conference pegged to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that found the prevalence of autism rising to 1 in 31 among 8-year-olds, the latest in a series of increases in recent decades.

Kennedy said “autism destroys families” and is an “individual tragedy as well.”

Kennedy said many autistic children were “fully functional” and had “regressed” into autism “when they were 2 years old. And these are kids 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. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

He also said: “Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features.”

Medical experts, along with people on the autism spectrum, told PolitiFact that Kennedy’s portrayal was skewed. A 2023 study written by CDC officials and university researchers found that one-quarter of people on the autism spectrum have severe limitations. But this is on the high end of studies, and many people in that one-quarter of the autism population do not have the limitations Kennedy mentioned.

The vast majority of people on the spectrum do not have those severe challenges.

“I wish he would spend some time with parents of other autistic children, and well-regarded scientists who have studied this condition for decades,” said David Mandell, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor and director of the Penn Center for Mental Health. “He has a fixed, myopic view.”

The Department of Health and Human Services did not provide data on what share of people with autism diagnoses are unable to do the things Kennedy described.

“Secretary Kennedy remains committed to working toward a society where people with autism have access to meaningful opportunities, appropriate supports, and the full respect and recognition they deserve,” department press secretary Vianca N. Rodriguez Feliciano told PolitiFact. “His statements emphasized the need for increased research into environmental factors contributing to the rise in autism diagnoses, not to stigmatize individuals with autism or their families.”

The Washington Post reported that an HHS spokesperson said Kennedy “was referring to those that are severely affected by this chronic condition” and that “this was in no way a general characterization.”

We took a closer look at the available data and research.

What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

At root, “autism is a difference in how your child’s brain works that shapes how they interact with the world around them,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. People with autism diagnoses, the clinic says, “may excel more in certain areas and need more support in other areas compared to their neurotypical peers.”

Over the years, autism’s definition and diagnosis has changed.

In the 1950s and 1960s, “it is very likely that many people with profound autism were misdiagnosed with ‘mental retardation,’ a term in use at the time, or schizophrenia, while other autistic people probably got no diagnosis at all,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a Claremont McKenna College politics professor, author of the book “The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum,” and a father of an autistic son who’s about to graduate from college.

In more recent decades, the diagnostic criteria for autism have broadened, producing a spectrum ranging from severe impacts to more modest ones. Today’s definition encompasses “individuals with milder symptoms, stronger language skills, and higher IQs,” said Christopher Banks, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America.

How Common are the More Limiting Forms of Autism?

Autism’s expanded definition means a minority of people on the spectrum have the kinds of severe limitations Kennedy cited, though it’s hard to say how many.

The highest total we found comes from a 2023 federal report, written by CDC officials and university researchers. It found that 26.7% of 8-year-olds with autism had “profound” autism, a newly framed (and not universally accepted) definition that included children who were nonverbal, were minimally verbal, or had an IQ below 50. (“Average” IQ is considered 90 to 109.)

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People with profound autism “will require lifetime, round-the-clock care,” said Judith Ursitti, co-founder and president of the Profound Autism Alliance, a nonprofit. Ursitti said her 21-year-old son “is not headed towards employment or a career in poetry or baseball. Acknowledging this fact is important, as this population is often excluded from media portrayals and research.”

Other estimates are lower.

A study published in 2024, by researchers at the University of Utah and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, looked at 1,368 U.S. children with autism. When parents were asked whether they would characterize their child’s autism as “severe,” 10.1% said yes. Among this group of children with “severe” autism, a minority — 38% — were classified as having a “severe” intellectual disability.

“Even among those with an intellectual disability, there’s huge variability,” Mandell said. “People with Down syndrome have an intellectual disability but often are quite capable and can do all the things RFK points to.”

The CDC published data in 2020 showing that 42% of people with autism had an IQ in the average or higher range, and another study has found that this figure could be as high as 60%.

Zoe Gross, the director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said limited available data suggests that Kennedy’s characterization is exaggerated.

Gross, who is on the spectrum herself, said a 2017 study found that 61% of people on the spectrum who were studied were employed. As for baseball, the Special Olympics, which was founded by Kennedy’s family and includes competitors who are on the spectrum, includes softball. At least two people who played major league baseball, Tarik El-Abour and Jim Eisenreich, were public about their autism diagnoses.

Gross said there is no official data on autistic poets, but she was aware of the poet DJ Savarese, a nonspeaking but highly literate advocate. Gross was also unable to find data on dating, but she said she’s married, and she pointed to the Netflix reality show “ Love on the Spectrum,” which follows autistic people’s dating lives. It is now in its third season.

As for not using a toilet unassisted, the 2024 study that analyzed 1,368 U.S. children with autism and found that 10.1% were considered “severe” found that 67% of those in the “severe” category had trouble bathing or dressing, which, if generalizable to the entire autistic population, would be less than 7%. Another study found urinary incontinence reported by 12.5% of the autistic people studied and fecal incontinence by 7.9%.

Eric M. Garcia, who is on the spectrum and who has written the book “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation,” was covering Kennedy’s remarks as Washington bureau chief of The Independent. Hearing his words “felt so demoralizing,” Garcia told PolitiFact. “A lot of people will respond by saying, ‘He didn’t mean autistic people like you.’ But that doesn’t make it any better.”

PolitiFact staff writer Madison Czopek contributed to this article.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The federal agency’s environmental justice office played a crucial role in helping New Yorkers reverse environmental burdens in their neighborhoods, according to EPA employees and community groups who spoke with City Limits.

EPA employees and members of the union for federal government workers at an April 22 rally agains the Trump administration’s layoffs at the agency. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

When Earth Day rolled around on April 22, employees who care for mother nature at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn’t have much to celebrate. 

The night before, the Trump administration notified over 450 staff members who work with environmental justice or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that their jobs were on the chopping block. Plans to “terminate” these divisions were announced in March and are now officially underway.

The latest notification known as a “reduction in force,” which goes into effect July 31, will start the termination process for 280 employees, according to an EPA spokesperson. Another 175 staffers are getting “reassigned to other offices.”

The cuts are being carried out thanks to an executive order the president issued in late January to end “radical and wasteful DEI programs” as well as “environmental justice (EJ) offices and positions.”

“Instead of directly helping communities in need, the left has lined the pockets of their allies in the name of Environmental Justice,” Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA said on X about pulling the plug on the division.

But locally, the EPA’s environmental justice office played a crucial role in helping New Yorkers reverse environmental burdens in their neighborhoods, according to employees and community groups who spoke with City Limits.

EPA’s Region 2—which serves New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight Tribal Nations—launched its EJ division in 2022 with the purpose of addressing community concerns that the agency’s other programs couldn’t.

The office expanded the network of community groups in New York that received resources and support from the federal government, and brought state and city agencies together to tackle environmental issues.

“[Terminating the EJ division] is going to hurt communities that have been underserved, and overburdened. That’s the big shame of it to me,” an EPA employee who asked to remain anonymous told City Limits. 

It’s also causing widespread panic. As EJ offices dissolve and mass layoffs of federal workers continue across the country in the name of cutting costs, those still employed fear for the future of their jobs.

“We’re all in the office working full time, but it’s like being a dead man walking, because you know at any time that you could be next,” said Ed Guster, union president for Local 3911, the EPA chapter of the federal workers union AFGE.

What does the EJ division actually do?

In 2021, the environmental lawyer Lisa Garcia stepped into her role as head administrator for Region 2 with plans to address a pressing problem.

Former EPA Administration Lisa Garcia at an Earth Day Rally at City Hall. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

While the EPA has “community involvement coordinators” doing outreach in contaminated areas that have been designated federal Superfund sites where clean-up is required, Garcia says they don’t have the authority to go beyond the scope of their projects. 

“Their work does not cover all of the United States and the rest of the country should have access to the EPA too,” she told City Limits.

In the fall of 2022, the Biden administration set out to reach communities that had previously been left out by merging three existing national programs into the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. Under Garcia, Region 2 followed suit by launching its own EJ division that same year.

“The goal was to extend our relationships. We were pushing the envelope by going out to places and hearing about environmental problems from communities we hadn’t heard from,” she added.

The Trump administration, however, said in an email that getting rid of the EJ division “is the first step in a broader effort to ensure that EPA meets its core mission of protecting human health and the environment and Powering the Great American Comeback.” The so-called comeback aims to accomplish a series of goals including “restoring American Energy Dominance,” referring to Donald Trump’s push to develop more oil and gas.

Getting rid of environmental justice offices would also “directly benefit the American people,” Travis Voyles, assistant deputy administrator for the EPA, said in a memo circulated to employees last week and reviewed by City Limits.

But for the South Bronx residents who care for the Rainbow Garden of Life and Health on Melrose Avenue, the EPA’s environmental justice team played a crucial role.

When state authorities failed to meet with them about their desire to establish a clear timeline for cleaning up a contaminated lot next door to their community garden, residents say the EPA got them to act.

Since 2021, residents have wanted to meet with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) about the neighboring lot, which is a designated brownfield, or a chronically vacant or underutilized toxic land that the DEC is tasked with remediating.

It wasn’t until the EPA got involved and toured the site last November that the DEC told residents it would be hosting the first in-person meeting with them in the South Bronx in March, a resident told City Limits.

“I’m pretty certain that the [DEC] agreed they had to do something because of that meeting we had with the EPA,” said Angel Garcia, who helps run the Melrose community garden.

“If there’s nobody in the EPA offices saying more community outreach should be done, I don’t see how any of the state environmental agencies are going to feel pressured to really inform their communities,” Garcia added.

Angel Garcia at the Rainbow Garden of Life and Health in the South Bronx. He and neighbors have been pushing the state to clean up the lot next door to the garden, and had been meeting with the EPA for assistance. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

The DEC said in an email that it “remains committed to environmental justice” and that it keeps communities informed about cleanups by distributing fact sheets and sending updates via email that people can sign up for on the agency’s website. They also underscored that they partner with local stakeholders and officials to spread the word.

But EPA’s EJ offices provided an extra channel for community members to address environmental concerns in the South Bronx and beyond.

In Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood—where air pollution has risen to levels the EPA considers potentially harmful for sensitive groups—the EJ office gave a local organization, the Red Hook Initiative, support and resources to launch an air monitoring program. 

The EJ division also hosted a tour around the area’s ports so community leaders could show local authorities how the transportation of goods impacts their neighborhoods, according to a participating environmental group that asked to remain anonymous.

For fear of losing their federal funding, some environmental groups approached by City Limits refrained from sharing testimonies of how the EPA’s EJ offices helped them. 

And inside the EPA, other departments say that they too are feeling the blow from the EJ division’s fallout.

‘As miserable as possible’

When Suzanne Englot, executive vice president of Local 3911, heard that the EJ division employees received notices on their impending job losses, she took to the streets to protest. After picketing in front of EPA’s Manhattan headquarters with around a dozen other employees, she joined environmental groups on an Earth Day march to City Hall.

Although Englot isn’t an EJ employee and works instead with enforcing the regulation of waste and toxic substances, she says everyone is shaken up by the cuts. “Everything is being affected. It feels like no one’s work is truly safe,” Englot said.

She’s one of the few employees in the Region 2 offices speaking up. Most are afraid to voice their concerns.

“Morale is low,” a staffer who asked to remain anonymous said. Employees say the staffing shake up and recent changes in environmental policies are impacting productivity across departments.

“At this moment, it just feels really hard to do anything, even as someone who’s not directly in the line of fire for losing their job at this moment,” Englot explained. “We’re just all very uncertain about the future of the agency.”

On March 25, Zeldin announced a massive rollback of environmental regulations put forth by the Biden Administration. 

In a video posted on the social network X, Zeldin promised to end Biden-era policies that he refers to as “the Green New Scam.” The decision, he claimed, would cut “trillions in regulatory costs for everyday Americans.”

The policies, which Zeldin says “restrict nearly every sector of our economy,” include initiatives that established limits on greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel power plants and regulated emissions for light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles.

EPA Commissioner Lee Zeldin taking questions from reporters earlier this month. (Flickr/US EPA)

The EPA also removed an interactive map called the EJ Screen from its website. The tool combined demographic and environmental information to identify areas disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Harvard University, which teamed up with the EPA to create the platform, is working on getting a new version of it up and running. 

And wide-spread chaos has ensued as staff gets fired and reinstated across the agency, which has reportedly already lost 1,000 workers.

In February, some EPA environmental justice staffers were put on administrative leave, and several probationary workers were terminated. Then in March, dozens of employees that were placed on leave got reinstated, and hundreds of probationary workers were reportedly rehired.

Employees say supervisors are being notified in real time about the decisions happening up top so that everyone is left scrambling when a change is suddenly made.

“There’s a lot of panic,” said Guster. He works at the EPA as a crisis manager, helping people impacted by an emergency, like the wildfires that engulfed California, access psychological care.

The agency also ended remote work and telework for most of its employees. For Guster, who lives in Philadelphia, that means spending three hours commuting every day. 

“I have to go back to the office full time even though we have had telework in some sort of fashion for the last 20-plus years. The idea is to make the employee’s life as miserable as possible so that they quit,” Guster added.

Legal expert Timothy Whitehouse, executive director at the law group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, agrees.

“They want to create uncertainty. They want to make people not want to be able to come into work and they want people to quit the government,” said Whitehouse, who is helping federal workers legally challenge Trump’s mass layoffs.

For the second time since Trump took office, EPA employees were asked by email this week if they would like to voluntarily retire or choose what is called deferred resignation, which allows them to resign but continue to get paid through the fall.  

Whitehouse says Trump’s insistence on reducing the federal workforce at any cost, and his desire to get rid of the environmental justice department at the EPA, is leading the United States down a dangerous path.

“We’re slipping into a totalitarian form of government where the president can just decide what they like and don’t like and fire people at random, and no one has the power to do anything about it,” he said.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post As EPA’s Environmental Justice Employees Lose Their Jobs, New York Community Groups Pay the Price appeared first on City Limits.

An open house to celebrate the reopening of Marine on St. Croix Village Hall after a major remodel will be held on Thursday.

The open house will run from 4-6 p.m. on Thursday at Marine Village Hall, 121 Judd St.

The $244,000 remodel, which started in February, was undertaken to make city offices more secure by enlarging the assistant clerk’s office and creating a new waiting room area for visitors with window access to the clerk’s office.

City council and planning commission meetings have permanently moved to the upstairs of the Village Hall. The former council chambers, which had been located on the main floor, were remodeled to create a new office space for the city administrator, along with a smaller conference room meeting space.

Other additions: a new accessible bathroom, updating of existing bathrooms, new kitchen space and a janitor’s closet.

The project was paid for with $184,000 in city funds and a $60,000 donation from the Marine Restoration Society.

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By JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — A former TV production assistant told a jury Wednesday that Harvey Weinstein held her down on a bed and forced oral sex on her after she told him: “No, no — it’s not going to happen.”

Dabbing her eyes, Miriam Haley recalled what ran through her mind during the alleged July 2006 assault: “The unthinkable was happening, I just thought any unthinkable thing could happen. I just didn’t know where it ended.”

Weinstein, sitting between his lawyers, shook his head as she spoke.

Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, is the first of the ex-Hollywood honcho’s accusers to testify at his rape retrial. It’s happening because New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction.

The 73-year-old former studio boss has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone.

Haley testified at the original trial and was candid last year about her mixed feelings about repeating the experience.

Weinstein’s attorneys haven’t yet had their chance to question her and potentially try to poke holes in her account. But the defense has sought vigorously — if often unsuccessfully — to rein in the scope of Haley’s testimony by objecting to prosecutors’ questions, such as multiple queries about whether she had any sexual interest in Weinstein. Haley said she did not.

The defense has argued that all of Weinstein’s accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting work in show business.

Haley began her testimony Tuesday by describing how she got to know Weinstein, briefly worked as a production assistant on his company’s reality show “Project Runway” in June 2006 and had a series of interactions with him that were sometimes inappropriate and suggestive, but other times professional and polite.

Throughout, Haley said, she was only looking for professional opportunity — not sex or romance — with the then-powerful producer of such Oscar winners as “Shakespeare in Love” and “Gangs of New York.”

Weinstein’s retrial includes charges based on allegations from Haley and another accuser from the original trial, Jessica Mann, who was once an aspiring actor. She alleges that Weinstein raped her in 2013.

He’s also being tried, for the first time, on an allegation of forcing oral sex on former model Kaja Sokola in 2006. Her claim wasn’t part of the first trial.

Mann and Sokola also are expected to testify at some point.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted unless they give permission for their names to be used. Haley, Mann and Sokola have done so.