Responding to RFK Jr.'s remarks, Representative Frost wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "This is disrespectful and a flat-out lie that further stigmatizes autism. It's not a virus or a disease — it's a neurological condition with a wide spectrum. Many Americans with autism work, pay taxes, and are living happy and healthy lives."

Which is why, nearly eight years later, hearing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — now the secretary of Health and Human Services — stand at a podium and describe children like my son as part of an “autism epidemic,” allegedly caused by unnamed “environmental toxins,” feels like whiplash.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary, has spoken several times in April about plans to find the origins of autism.