HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visits Rochester to announce new autism initiative
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has a track record of spreading disinformation around autism, visited Rochester Friday to announce the launch of his new National Autism Missing Person Initiative.
Standing inside the Olmsted County Sheriff’s training center, Kennedy announced his agency’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to better support residents on the autism spectrum who are prone to wandering and getting lost. He said he wants to ensure individuals are recovered quickly and safely before they get into dangerous situations.
When an autistic child or an adult goes missing, every minute matters,” Kennedy said. “Approximately half of autistic individuals wander from a safe setting at some point. Wandering can happen during sensory overloads with anxiety, or when someone seeks some kind of new adventure or new experience. The consequence can be deadly.
“[Law enforcement needs] to know how the person communicates, what risks they face, and where to search first, including nearby bodies of water and other high-risk areas. The public also needs to know quickly when it could help make a difference.”
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Kennedy has made autism a priority in his agency, but he consistently spreads false information about the condition, including claims that Tylenol causes it.
Kennedy says he hopes to set up an alert system, sort of like an Amber Alert, so that the public and local law enforcement are notified immediately when a resident with autism goes missing. And as part of the initiative, HHS, FEMA, and the Department of Justice will collaborate to provide communities across the country with best practices and training for first responders.
While the initiative launched Friday, Kennedy did not specify a timeline for implementation, and it’s unclear when the alert system will be active.
Kennedy said that he selected Rochester to make his announcement because of the county’s success with the Project Lifesaver program, which served as inspiration for Kennedy’s initiative.
“We came here to learn from one of the most successful programs in the nation,” Kennedy said. “We want to know the successful approaches and help communities across America to implement these kind of effective practices in every community.”
Project Lifesaver, the international program founded in the 1990s, is already at work in large portions of the U.S., and has been part of Olmsted County’s capabilities for nearly 20 years to support individuals with all sorts of cognitive conditions, including Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Through the program, clients wear a transmitter about the size of a wristwatch on their wrist or ankle. If the client becomes lost, the client’s caregivers can call 911 to activate the Project Lifesaver search team, which includes local law enforcement who are trained in these types of searches.
Diana Diaz-Harrison, HHS’s national autism coordinator, said that Olmsted County has a perfect record of recovery in these emergencies.
“We would love it to be at the level that it is here in Rochester, where – whether you call 911 and a sheriff or a police officer or even an off-duty person is in the area – when they hear ‘autism,’ they know what to do,” Diaz-Harrison said. “We want that knowledge to be baseline knowledge that all officers have.”
