RFK Jr. taps ARPA-H for faster autism diagnoses — SkimNews
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- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a new initiative at a Children's Health Defense conference to speed up autism diagnoses, calling current assessments outdated and over-reliant on professionals with limited availability.
- The program, named SPECTRA (Systems for Phenotypic Evaluation, Clinical Trajectories, Response, and Agency), will be administered by ARPA-H and overseen by Program Manager Russell Shilling; financial details for the grants were not disclosed.
- Organizations are being asked to submit technology "solutions" for faster assessments and improved quality of life for autistic people.
- Helen Tager-Flusberg of Boston University's Center for Autism Research Excellence called the technology focus "timely" but said she hopes the review process will be "unbiased."
- Autism assessment wait times now stretch months to years, and insurers are pulling back from covering ABA therapy after fraud allegations rocked the field.
- Kennedy has drawn criticism for calling autistic children "damaged" during the same keynote and for promoting debunked claims linking autism to vaccines and Tylenol use during pregnancy.
- Researchers remain cautiously optimistic about the NIH's separate Autism Data Science Initiative, which awarded $50 million to 13 projects in June.
Why it matters: With insurers pulling back from ABA therapy and diagnostic wait times stretching years, faster assessment tools could materially help families — but the program runs through an agency led by a secretary who has called autistic children "damaged" and pushed vaccine-autism claims, making the grant review process itself the trust test. Even supportive researchers like Tager-Flusberg flagged the need for an "unbiased" selection.
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