Autism Experts Warn US Research Plan Pushes Unproven Therapies

Autism groups and researchers have reacted with alarm to a federal research roadmap drawn up by advisers handpicked by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, fearing it will promote unproven fringe therapies at the expense of promising genetic research. A slew of scientific bodies and groups within the autism community are warning that the 336-page plan risks deflecting federal dollars away from potentially groundbreaking genetic research in favor of unreliable alternative therapies. There is little or no evidence, they say, that many of the proposed treatments work, or that they even fit the definition of autism.

"So much of the plan is fringe science that is absolutely not ready for prime time, said Helen Tager-Flusberg, an emeritus professor at Boston University and founder of the Coalition of Autism Scientists. Alliances of autistic people are especially worried that the plan could make it easier for them to be sent to institutions. The plan calls for government agencies to try out "supported-living models" such as "farmstead or campus-based communities, which the groups fear could revive forms of institutional confinement.