Rachel Abrams

Today, Azeen Qureshi explains what's really driving the increase in diagnoses.

It's Monday, November 24th.

So Azeen, the Make America Healthy Again movement, and RFK in particular, have really put autism in the spotlight.

RFK Jr., of course, has called autism an epidemic.

And I think it is fair to say that he has instilled a lot of fear in people about what the root causes of autism are.

And you've spent a lot of time thinking about this as part of your reporting.

And so that's where I'd like to start.

And in particular, I want to talk about the numbers.

So it goes from one in 150 to one in every 31 children.

So basically you're saying that the tent has gotten bigger, but not necessarily because there is a true fundamental increase in the number of people who have autism.

Even if that's part of it, it's that more people are being captured within this expanding definition.

Tell me a little bit about her and sort of her backstory.

And what were the clinicians telling the families, like telling the parents, and what kind of treatment were they suggesting?

So when and how does that start to change?

So this is the first time autism is officially recognized as a diagnosis.

Where does it go from there?

So does broadening the definition and also capturing this other group of kids, does that help settle the question of what autism is and isn't?

So it sounds like it's both meaningful personally, but also quite meaningful in terms of resources, as you mentioned, like there are meaningful stakes here for the people involved in terms of what they get access to, whether it's health care or school resources or beyond.

Yes, exactly.

So basically Asperger's as a category is getting eliminated, the definition of autism is expanding, and the whole tent basically is getting bigger.