Summary

RFK Jr. is using private medical records to create a registry of people with autism in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health is helping to collect private medical records from government and commercial databases, including “prescription records from pharmacies, lab testing, and genomics records from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, private insurance claims, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers.”

Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, has made the study of autism one of HHS’s primary goals. He has called autism “preventable” and claimed “he can find a cure for the condition by September.”

  • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
    17·
    9 hours ago

    An admirable goal, even though I’m pretty sure current science says it’s not possible. I don’t think he’s smart, but maybe the actual smart people working on this will get somewhere, and if that helps people, that’s good.

    Might not get anywhere, but I suppose it’s worth a try (assuming the academics involved think there’s a good reason).

    At face value, it does seem like an invasion of privacy, if there’s no consent to share medical records, etc.

    p.s. the nazi comments are kinda gross, if they wanted to exterminate disabled people, they surely wouldn’t need to make headlines about them gathering data, it could be a private affair.

    • zbyte64@awful.systems
      31·
      8 hours ago

      You know what would be an admirable goal? Curing whatever made you post this comment. To that end I’ve put you in RFK’s database because you might be struggling with context.

      • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Wow you have totally changed my mind about my original post!

        Serious though, just here for discussion, but it seems that there’s a lot of sheep here that dont question anything or try to expand upon their knowledge… which is a problem, why can’t you reply with something constructive?

        Keep reading your headlines that fuel your anger if that’s what you want, but don’t reply to people that oppose your views if you have nothing to add.

        You had a chance with your reply to help me and possibly others understand your viewpoint more, but all you have done is make me hate u lol.

        Tangent warning thats too late

        • zbyte64@awful.systems
          1·
          5 hours ago

          Serious though, just here for discussion, but it seems that there’s a lot of sheep here that dont question anything or try to expand upon their knowledge… which is a problem, why can’t you reply with something constructive?

          Have you considered that I chose to respond the way I did and not because I am a sheeple?

          You had a chance with your reply to help me and possibly others understand your viewpoint more, but all you have done is make me hate u lol.

          I am not responsible for your emotions.