Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears to be backtracking on his vow to find the cause of autism spectrum disorder by September 2025. 

The Hill claims that Kennedy did so during a recent interview on CNN.

You can judge for yourself.

First, though, we will look at what Kennedy has pledged.

Background

It was during a Trump administration cabinet meeting, back in April, that Kennedy pledged to find the cause of autism by September, ABC News reports.

During the meeting, which was publicized, he said:

At your direction, we are going to know by September. We've launched a massive testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world. In September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures.

The secretary, of course, was directing his speech at President Donald Trump, who, according to ABC, "commended Kennedy on the September goal."

The president also speculated, somewhat, on what the potential cause or causes of autism may turn out to be.

Scientists have yet to really pin the cause down, even though it has been researched for decades. What is known for certain, though, is that autism diagnoses have skyrocketed in recent decades.

The latest

The claim is that Kennedy backed away from his vow to find the cause of autism by September during a recent interview that he did on CNN.

There, he was asked, "Is that still the timeline that you are sticking with?"

Kennedy replied:

We will have some studies completed by September. And those studies will mainly be replication studies of studies that have already been done. But we’re also deploying new teams of scientists — 15 groups of scientists. We’re going to send those grants out to bid within three weeks.

Kennedy went on to explain why replication was needed, saying:

If you don’t have replication, you don’t know whether other scientists, looking at the same data, will arrive at the same conclusion. Good science always includes replication. In fact, we’re changing the procedures at NIH so that up to 20% of the funding at NIH is for replication. If you don’t have replication, you have incentives to cheat. And there’s a lot of cheating that goes on in science.

As for the timeline, Kennedy said that, while the agency will have "some of the information" by September, "it will probably take us another six months" to get to the bottom of the situation. We'll see.