Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed a plan on Wednesday that aims to utilize Medicaid and Medicare data to study autism, through a partnership with the NIH and CMS. Despite the size of the datasetâcovering nearly 150 million Americansâexperts argue that the data may not provide insights into the condition's true causes. Researcher Helen Tager-Flusberg emphasized that the needed investigations center more on genetics and factors from early life, not the demographic and economic analyses proposed in the government's program.
Using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases, Kennedy said in a statement.
The problem is that this isn't the kind of data needed to answer questions about autism's causes, said Helen Tager-Flusberg.
Enough research has been done at this point to know there is no simple magic bullet, she said.
Kennedy has directed the health department to undertake a far-reaching research effort to identify the causes of autism.
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