Context: In recent days/weeks, both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made wild announcements about supposedly having found the cause of autism. Their claims center around painkillers like Tylenol, taken by the mother when pregnant. The internet went crazy: from autism moms feeling seen and vindicated, to autistic influencers with good intentions, trying to come up with quick gotcha’s to debunk the claims. And then there’s the people saying autism doesn’t even exist, or at least, not in the less dependent part of the spectrum…
I tried to add some nuance to the conversation on X and on Threads, but it turns out people without an account can’t read that. So here’s the full thread again – with some extra words and links, because there’s no letter limit here, lol.
Ugh. Another day of politicizing autism and dumb takes on both sides of the isle. A few things that I would like people to understand:
The Cause
First of all: Autism is believed to have both genetic and environmental factors. The 2025 meta-analysis by the Sinai Hospital (the one that Trump and Kennedy base their claims on) shows a correlation between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism, but it’s not clear whether this is cause and effect. There’s a recent study where the correlation disappears when comparing siblings (one exposed to Tylenol, the other not). And even if there is a correlation, there could be an underlying reason which would explain both Tylenol use and autism. The mom could be autistic herself and struggling with pain more than a neurotypical mom would. The mom could be a medical-help-seeking individual, both for meds and for a diagnosis for her kid.
Having said that, the “Tylenol didn’t even exist back then” argument is not the gotcha you think it is. Cancer existed before sigarettes. Something can be a contributing factor, but not the only reason for something to exist. It could trigger some genes and make it a few percent more likely.
But even if this Tylenol link turns out to be correct (which is still pretty questionable), it will not eradicate autism, or “cure” it. The Trump admin is using way too big words for all of this. (The news media and even studies tend to do that a lot too, it’s exhausting. And don’t get me started on “autistic mice”… What do they do, ride model trains?)
Many autistic people don’t even want to get cured. Our neurotype has benefits too. However, we should not forget there are people struggling. It’s not intrinsically wrong to look for forms of relief for sensory overload so bad you want to smack your head against the wall.
"Amish don't have autism"
Some people like to bring up some tribe or group our country where there is “no autism”, but is there really no autism there, or is it just not (or less often) diagnosed, because said tribe/group/whatever doesn’t have or seek healthcare like the control group?
Oh and the Amish? They do have autism.
Some say autism is an epidemic. Most of it is probably just improved healthcare and expanding diagnostic criteria, recognizing autistics who, in the past, were just called “crazy” and put away.
I believe that the world nowadays can be a bit tougher to navigate, which makes people seek diagnoses sooner. People who would have been fine being the eccentric einzelgänger in town decades ago, are now often expected to fit into a neurotypical world, causing issues. I also believe that unhealthy lifestyles, although not causing autism, will worsen symptoms. Unhealthy bodies cause more sensory issues, and bad eating habits can cause moodswings, brain fog and rigidity. (We know this from anorexia studies.)
I did notice that in a lot of cases, people tend to focus on the autism part, instead of for example an intellectual disability. There can be incentives to diagnose a certain way, if that makes support more available.
Love from the spectrum
So, do I hate the current diagnostic system? No. I still believe it’s good to have a spectrum, because it’s often not possible to make strict distinctions between categories. However, I feel more and more like we’re forgetting about the ones that are struggling the most.
Autism is a disability, but so is having a limp – that doesn’t mean you can’t live a fulfilling life. Still, there is a big difference between a limp and being paralyzed. Denying the limp can be dangerous and cause damage, but we shouldn’t deny the paralyzed struggles either.
So yeah. That’s my elaborate, balanced take. I ended my Thread with the remark that I should have written a blogpost, so here it is. Anyway. Love y’all.
Whoa, so oldschool! An RSS feed!
Save this link in your RSS reader and follow my blog however you want it – chronological, in your mailbox, in your browser... Yes, the past is here!
https://www.toeps.nl/blog-en/feed/Related posts
Books and plans
“Hey Toeps, how’s it going with your books?” In this blog, I’ll tell you what I’ve been working on lately and give you a little peek behind the scenes of life as a falling-star author who’s never quite satisfied (the negative spin), or who’s always striving for more and better (the positive one). I’d love to hear your thoughts too, so feel free to leave a comment!
I went to a meeting for autistic girls in Japan
Some time ago, I was invited by Kohei Kato, an autism researcher at Tokyo Gakugei University who also works as an editorial manager at Japanese publisher Kaneko Shobo. He immediately told me not to expect too much, but he wanted to get acquainted. He gave me two books from his publishing company about autism in girls and women, in Japanese. I haven’t read the books yet (my Japanese isn’t that good, unfortunately), but the titles were promising – these books were about camouflage, or masking.
Why infodumping may not be the best love language after all
A girl is talking to the camera in a short clip made for platforms like Instagram and TikTok. “People often think we autistic people are egocentric because we respond to your sad story with a similar story from our own lives – but this is how we show empathy!” A bit later, a brightly colored image appears in my feed: “Infodumping is my autistic love language.” We need to normalize it, because this is how autistic people show they care, according to the widely shared post.
Buongiorno and konnichiwa
It’s-a me, Toeps, business manager. This blog is a selection of the things I have done in recent months. Because a lot has happened, and a lot is still going to happen! What exactly, you ask? Well…
Nine struggles you’ll probably recognize when you’re autistic
This article was initially written for Flow Magazine. They asked me: What do you struggle with when you have autism?
Which jobs are suitable for autistic people?
In the silly piece in Trouw to which I responded with some other autistic writers, two critical “giftedness coaches” wrote that we couldn’t have autism at all, because, ‘Writers who say they have autism but write books and are in relationships are not examples of people with autism to us.’ Why their entire article made no sense we explained clearly enough in our reply, but the fact that they mentioned the very profession of being a writer made it extra funny to me. Did these two think that someone who sits like a hermit all day in their attic, in a cabin in the woods or, in my case, at the foot of Mt. Fuji, crafting sentences, cannot be autistic? How…?