CHARLESTON, W.Va, (WCHS) — Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made various claims regarding autism in the youth of America during a news conference this week. The speech was delivered in reaction to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and quickly garnering criticism among advocates and parents.

“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,” RFK Jr. said.

Parents and advocates have spoke out denouncing these claims, saying that he is further stigmatizing autism spectrum disorder.

“I have always said, and I will always say, my child’s autism has never been the barrier, Taylor McClanahan, a mother said. “I don’t know if I felt more disgust or more fear when I heard those statements. Autism doesn’t destroy families. My family is made beautiful because of my children who have autism.”

She said these statements are dangerous to autistic people across the country.

“It doesn’t take writing a poem to make a human, it doesn’t take playing baseball to be a human, and it’s so scary if we start giving these qualifiers for what makes a child a child and what makes a person a person deserving of living in our community,” she said.

McClanahan said there is no burden or tragedy to autism. She just wants the world to accept her children and everybody else with autism as human beings.

“As a parent, I’ve spent my child’s whole childhood trying to show the world he’s a person and deserves to be treated as a person,” she said.

According to the CDC in 2022 around 1 in 31 children aged 8 year were identified with autism spectrum disorder.

This was a statistic RFK Jr. used to push back on those saying modern medicine and new technology makes it easier to diagnose children with autism. He blames it on an environmental cause that he says he is investigating, a theory which pediatric critical care professor and doctor, Kate Waldeck, disagrees with.

“If I could speak to him directly, I would tell him that autistic children are a benefit to our society. Autism is a largely genetic disease. We know this because severe autism has remained stable and it’s our level one, level two autistic kids that are getting increasingly diagnosed,” Waldeck said.