RFK Jr.’s proposed budget cuts threaten autism care in Northern California | Opinion

When my son was two, his preschool teachers told us he wasn’t like the other kids. They suggested that I come visit his preschool classroom. While other children chatted, played together and worked on art projects, my son stood on his head on the couch in the corner.

A few months later, my son got his autism diagnosis. My wife and I immediately tried to learn everything we could about autism. We’re still learning. But in those years, we’ve found all sorts of supports and therapies that have given my son the tools to succeed in a world that isn’t designed for people who think and communicate like him.

Now, many of those supports and therapies are at risk.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Department of Health and Human Services claim to care about autism and about autistic people like my son, so much so that finding the cause of autism is the defining goal their department. But in reality, according to a leaked section of the proposed Health and Human Services budget, they are on a path to dismantle the entire architecture of care for autistic patients in the United States, including here in Northern California.

The cuts to autism research and support span the federal government, from Health and Human Services to the Department of Education to the Department of Defense. The cuts are so broad — and so extreme — that it’s hard to understand the full implications across the country. But the implications for doctors and the patients they serve are becoming more clear.

If the leaked budget proposal is passed, it will mean the end of the Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disability, which provide training for patients with developmental disabilities, their families and their communities.

There are 69 Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disability around the country, including one in Sacramento, funded through the Office of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities within the Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, they provided services to 1.3 million people. Now, all of them could close.

In Sacramento, the Northern California Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities program trains teachers, speech pathologists, nurses, occupational and physical therapists, child psychologists and developmental and behavioral pediatrics fellows. They will be the future specialists who care for patients with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

The very same specialists who are the reason my son is now a thriving second grader at the top of his class could lose their funding and their jobs.

Under this budget plan, Head Start, the program that makes sure many children (including children from low-income families with disabilities) get early access to school supports, will end. Yet research shows that Head Start saves $7 in future costs for every dollar spent.

Even if RFK Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services succeed in the mission to identify the cause of autism (and there are countless reasons to believe that they will fail in that effort), it will be of no help to the 3% of 8-year-olds like my son who are already autistic. They don’t need a cause or a cure. They need the basic supports and accommodations that allow them to be happy, healthy, productive members of our society, and research that helps them thrive even more.

Defunding autism takes us down the wrong path. Our representatives in Congress must stand against this disastrous budget plan, and those of us who want to make the world a better place to be autistic must hold them to account.