Autism Advocates Panic Over “National Registry”

STAT News reports:

People with autism and parents of autistic kids are asking clinicians to erase their diagnoses and cancelling appointments with medical professionals, according to interviews conducted in recent days at an international autism conference.

Amy Esler, a pediatric psychologist at the University of Minnesota, said she has heard of similar cancellations from peers across the country through the International Collaboration for Diagnostic Evaluation of Autism network, which includes more than 20 major autism care and research centers such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Families seeking a pre-diagnosis evaluation from the University of North Carolina TEACCH Autism Program have removed themselves from the waitlist, according to Hannah Morton, a UNC psychiatry professor. Multiple organizations declined to comment about the issue.

Read the full article. According the piece, the autism community is panicked over Robert Kennedy Jr.’s plan to create a national registry of people with autism, something they fear could be used against them when it comes to employment, education, housing, insurance, and other issues.

This week, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya sent shockwaves through the autism community by announcing the creation of a “disease registry” to track autistic people. @beth_hawkins reports

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