The US Secretary of Health and Human Services Declares an Epidemic of Immune Dysregulation. MSM Will React by Blaming Parents and Falling Back on Miasma Theory

In a Fox New interview, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told the nation that the US is suffering from an Epidemic of Immune Dysregulation. Anything But Vaccines (ABVs)

Last week, in an interview on Fox News, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services Declares an Epidemic of Immune Dysregulation Yet no one seems to have responded to this monumental announcement. It’s almost as if he never even said it.

Instead, the MSM is going full-bore (and it’s summer!) switching into full denialist mode. Instead, they want to cite better diagnosis, and anything other than pharmaceutical products as the source of the problem.

Public messaging by some pharmaceutical-linked organizations, health authorities, and media outlets has at times tried, and failed to pin parental stress, children’s screen exposure, or home environment as causes of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – claims not backed by solid science. For example, local news headlines have touted studies suggesting maternal stress in pregnancy “causes” autism, such as a Colorado news report on a study linking prenatal stress (combined with a labor drug) to autism fox4now.com. In reality, large epidemiological studies have not found ordinary stressful life events in pregnancy to increase autism risk thetransmitter.org. A 2012 analysis explicitly concluded that experiencing acute stress (e.g. a family death or illness during pregnancy) did not elevate autism odds – contradicting earlier small studies and casting doubt on stress as a trigger thetransmitter.org.

Similarly, excessive screen time in early childhood has been blamed in media and popular discourse for rising autism rates. The term “virtual autism” was even coined by a Romanian psychologist after he claimed some toddlers’ autism-like symptoms were reversed by removing hours of screen exposure madinamerica.com. This idea – amplified through blogs and even a recent documentary film – warns that young children who spend “more than four hours per day” on screens may develop autism-like behaviors, supposedly curable by cutting off gadgets madinamerica.com. While correlational studies have indeed found that children with ASD tend to have higher screen time on average madinamerica.com, even StatNews cautions this does not prove causation statnews.com. For instance, a 2024 JAMA Pediatrics study of 5,100 kids found >14 hours/week of screen time before age 2 associated with higher autism diagnoses by age 12 – but the authors emphasized underlying factors (e.g. socioeconomic and developmental differences) likely explain the link, not screens themselves statnews.com. Some specialists have even asked: could it be that children who are already autistic gravitate to screens more, rather than screens causing the autism statnews.com? (Does it take a statistician to know this?) Indeed, mainstream pediatric guidance recognizes that too much passive screen use can delay social and language development, but does not label it an ASD cause crossrivertherapy.com. As one overview flatly states: “Television does not cause autism. Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition with a genetic and environmental basis – it is not linked to watching TV or any specific media exposure” crossrivertherapy.com.

Blaming the home environment or parenting style for autism has an even longer – and troubling – history. In the 1950s and 60s, prominent psychologists advanced the “refrigerator mother” theory, which cruelly posited that cold, unloving mothers induced autism in their children. This notion gained traction in both professional and popular culture, putting generations of parents (especially mothers) on the defensive. Bruno Bettelheim and others claimed “aberrant” parenting was the root cause of autism, an idea widely accepted until it was finally debunked in subsequent decades journalofethics.ama-assn.org. We now know this was completely wrong – as parents of multiple children could readily observe, loving families could have one autistic child and one neurotypical child journalofethics.ama-assn.org. Yet the legacy of that mother-blame persists. In more recent guise, parents may be implicitly faulted for “home environment” factors like not engaging enough with the child. The “virtual autism” narrative above tiptoes into this territory, implying that inadequate parent-child interaction (due to screens as surrogate babysitters) is to blame madinamerica.com. Such claims echo the old parenting blame-game, albeit in modern form. No credible evidence shows normal variations in parenting or home setting cause autism – apart from cases of extreme neglect, which is a separate issue. In fact, autism is neurological in origin; leading authorities stress that it is not caused by parenting approaches or household electronics, even if those can influence a child’s general development and behavior crossrivertherapy.com.

To be clear, stressful life events, TV or tablet exposure, and parenting style can certainly affect a child’s behavior and development in general. Managing stress during pregnancy is healthy for many reasons, and limiting young children’s screen time is recommended to support language and social growthnortonchildrens.comnortonchildrens.com. But portraying these lifestyle factors as the explanation for autism’s occurrence or increase is unsupported by science. Often, these claims stem from small studies or anecdotal reports taken out of context. Meanwhile, much more substantive research has identified other factors – biological and environmental – that are far more plausibly involved in ASD.

What Science Says: Immune, Prenatal, and Environmental Contributors

In contrast to the flimsy evidence for stress or screen exposure as causes, established research has been homing in on other contributors to ASD. Autism is understood today as a complex multi-factorial neurodevelopmental condition with both genetic and environmental inputs mayoclinic.org. On the genetic side, dozens of gene variants and mutations (spontaneous or inherited) can confer susceptibility mayoclinic.org. But genes don’t tell the whole story. Immune dysregulation and neuroinflammation have emerged as significant pieces of the autism puzzle. Studies consistently find that many individuals on the spectrum show atypical immune activity – for example, altered levels of inflammatory cytokines in the brain and blood – correlating with autism symptoms pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. A 2022 review in Int. J. Mol. Sci. notes that “the immune hypothesis is considered a major factor contributing to autism pathogenesis”, given evidence linking immune dysfunction to ASD behavioral traits and identifying autistic subgroups with specific immune profiles pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. In some cases, autoimmunity and antibody responses might interfere with neurodevelopment. This line of evidence suggests that autism, at least in a subset of cases, involves an immune component – a far cry from blaming parental stress.

One of the most active research areas is maternal immune activation and inflammation during pregnancy. A mother’s immune response while pregnant – for instance, fighting off a virus or having a fever – can release molecules that affect the developing fetal brain. Prenatal exposure to infection (especially certain viral infections in the first or second trimester) has been linked in multiple studies to higher autism risk in the child pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. For example, a large population study in Denmark found that mothers hospitalized for a viral infection in first trimester had nearly 3× the odds of having a child later diagnosed with ASD, compared to mothers without such infections pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Other studies have similarly reported that maternal flu with prolonged fever or severe second-trimester bacterial infections correlate with elevated autism incidence pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. It’s not the infection pathogen per se that is suspected to cause autism, but rather the maternal immune response – inflammatory signals that may disrupt fetal neurodevelopment pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Researchers have modeled this phenomenon in animals: activating an expectant mother’s immune system in mice or primates can produce offspring with autism-like brain and behavior changes pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. All this has led scientists to consider maternal immune activation a bona fide risk factor for ASD (albeit one of many), reinforcing that biological prenatal conditions – not whether mom was “stressed out” or not affectionate – are relevant to autism etiology pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

You will not find any legacy media outlet connecting the dots that repeated vaccination during pregnancy is maternal immune activation.

Beyond immune factors, a range of environmental exposures have been associated with autism risk. These include toxicants and pollutants encountered in the womb or early life. One of the most consistently reported is air pollution: a number of epidemiological studies have converged on the finding that prenatal exposure to high levels of air pollution (such as traffic-related particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide) raises the likelihood of autism in the child pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. In fact, it is now “well established that maternal exposure to air pollution increases the risk of developing ASD in newborns,” according to a 2021 review in J. Autism Dev. Disord. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Some analyses have found a dose-response relationship – i.e. the more pollution a mother inhales during pregnancy, the greater the autism risk, on average pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. These findings point toward environmental neurotoxins (like heavy metals, combustion byproducts, etc.) affecting the developing brain. This forms the basis of my understanding after reading 2,000 studies on autism for my book ten years ago.

Other chemical exposures under scrutiny include pesticides, certain prenatal pharmaceuticals (e.g. valproate or possibly acetaminophen in utero), and food/industrial chemicals. Each of these has varying degrees of evidence; for example, maternal valproate (an anti-seizure drug) use during pregnancy is an established risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders science.org autismsciencefoundation.org, whereas the highly plausible hypothesis that prenatal acetaminophen (e.g., Tylenol(TM)) contributes to ASD is still being investigated in ongoing lawsuits and studies dolmanlaw.com.

Notably, vaccine ingredients have also been debated as potential environmental triggers. The mainstream scientific consensus is that routine childhood vaccines do not cause autism mayoclinic.org. Large-scale studies have repeatedly found no link between vaccines and ASD, repudiating the infamous (and later retracted) 1998 study that suggested a connection mayoclinic.org. However, some researchers have probed whether aluminum adjuvants (used in vaccines to enhance immune response) could play a role in neurodevelopmental outcomes. Aluminum is a known neurotoxic element in high doses and can provoke immune activity, so the question has been raised in the literature: could the aluminum in vaccines be one of the environmental factors contributing to autism? A 2011 paper by Canadian researchers pointed to a correlation between nations’ vaccine aluminum exposure and autism prevalence, positing that a causal relationship may exist sciencedirect.com. Another study examined brain tissues from autistic donors and reported elevated aluminum levels in ASD brain tissue gratefulcareaba.com. Stephanie Seneff and colleagues (2012) analyzed vaccine adverse event report data and argued their results “provide strong evidence supporting a link between autism and the aluminum in vaccines,” also noting the neuroinflammatory properties of aluminum mdpi.commdpi.com. It must be emphasized that such studies are highly controversial and criticized by many experts; they do not enjoy broad acceptance due to methodological concerns. Nevertheless, they underscore that environmental toxicology – including vaccine components, heavy metals, and pollution – is an active area of autism research. Crucially, these lines of investigation treat autism as a biomedical outcome influenced by neuroimmune and toxic exposures, rather than a byproduct of parenting practices.

In summary, current scientific evidence on ASD points toward a complex interplay of genetic predispositions and environmental influences that affect early brain development. Factors like maternal inflammation, immune dysregulation, pollutants, and possibly certain chemicals have far more empirical support as contributors to autism risk than do “soft” factors like screen viewing habits or family stress levels. Autism is also heterogeneous – what triggers or aggravates it in one individual might differ in another. This complexity makes simplistic one-cause explanations (especially those focusing on parental behavior) both misleading and potentially harmful, as they divert attention from genuine biological mechanisms.

‘Miasma Theory’ Deflection: Shifting Blame from Toxins to Lifestyle

The pattern of blaming autism on stress or screen time, despite weak evidence, can be seen as a modern form of “miasma theory” deflection. In medical history, the miasma theory was the obsolete notion that diseases were caused by foul airs or “pollution” in the environment – a catch-all explanation that delayed recognition of true causes. For instance, during 19th-century cholera epidemics, authorities often attributed illness to poisonous vapors (“bad air”) rather than contaminated water, thus impeding effective interventions npr.org. Only when germ theory gained acceptance did efforts shift to targeting the actual etiological agents (like cholera bacteria) and their transmission routes npr.org. The miasma concept was appealingly simple – and it wasn’t entirely false that poor sanitation air was unpleasant – but it amounted to a distraction that obfuscated the real threats npr.org.

Analogously, pinning autism on amorphous factors like “stress” or “too much screen time” can distract from more concrete environmental causes. It creates a scapegoat in the form of parental behavior or modern lifestyle, much like miasma theory blamed “bad air” or personal habits for disease. Historians note that once a hegemonic idea takes hold, it can be very hard to challenge – Bruno Bettelheim’s refrigerator-mother blame persisted for years even as parents knew in their hearts it was wrong journalofethics.ama-assn.org. That theory diverted scientific inquiry away from biology and onto mothers’ psyches, arguably setting back autism research. Today, an emphasis on “screen time” or parenting as causes may serve a similar deflective function: it shifts focus (and culpability) away from industrial and environmental factors – such as pollution, chemical additives, or pharmaceutical products – and puts it on individual lifestyle choices. This may occur unintentionally due to societal biases (e.g. a tendency to mother-blame or technophobia), but critics suggest it can also be strategic. By promoting certain narratives, industries and institutions can avoid scrutiny. For example, if rising autism rates are publicly chalked up to “kids these days glued to iPads” or “older moms under too much stress,” there is less pressure to examine pollutant exposure, vaccines, or corporate chemicals as potential contributors. In the realm of public health controversies, this tactic is well documented: the tobacco industry for decades deflected lung cancer concerns by attributing them to things like individual stress or genetics, downplaying tobacco’s role. Some observers see parallels in how the pharmaceutical industry and its affiliates handle autism debates – emphasizing benign explanations (or solely genetics) and dismissing environmental toxin hypotheses as “unproven” even when biological plausibility exists.

Labeling stress and screens as the culprits also oversimplifies a complex neurodevelopmental disorder, offering the public a false sense of explanation. It’s appealing to think autism might be prevented by something as straightforward as reducing maternal anxiety or turning off the TV. But this “feel-good” explanation is akin to the miasma idea: easy to grasp, perhaps comforting in its simplicity, yet ultimately a red herring. Meanwhile, the harder work – reducing exposure to air pollution, studying vaccine adjuvant safety, investigating maternal immune pathways – may get sidelined. Indeed, media analysis shows that coverage of autism often skews toward human-interest angles and quick fixes, rather than grappling with messy environmental science journalofethics.ama-assn.org psychologytoday.com. Historically, the miasma theory had to be overcome for true progress in disease prevention; similarly, autism research must resist “theories” that serve more to deflect and blame than to illuminate.

Conclusion

In reviewing the claims and the evidence, a clear pattern emerges. Claims that ASD is caused by parental stress, excessive screen time, or poor home environments lack credible scientific support, yet they persist in popular discourse and even from some health organizations. These narratives often function as distractions or deflections – a modern “miasma” theory for autism – which shift attention (and blame) toward easy targets and away from environmental and biological factors that are harder to confront. By contrast, robust research points to very different contributors: immune dysregulation (including maternal inflammation during pregnancy), specific environmental exposures like pollution or possibly neurotoxic substances, and complex gene–environment interactions. Drawing lessons from history, it is crucial to recognize and call out “miasma”‐style explanations when they arise. Doing so helps ensure that efforts remain focused on scientifically grounded avenues – from reducing toxic exposures to investigating prenatal health – rather than stigmatizing parents or chasing simplistic causes. In short, autism is not a result of bad parenting or too many cartoons, and perpetuating such myths only hampers our ability to address the real underlying factors crossrivertherapy.com. Just as germ theory replaced miasma theory to advance medicine, dispelling these deflections will allow autism science to advance toward genuine prevention and intervention, grounded in evidence and empathy for those affected.

Sources:

• Mayo Clinic Staff. “Autism spectrum disorder – Causes.” Mayo Clinic (2023) – Discusses known factors (genetic and environmental) and discredits vaccine myth mayoclinic.orgmayoclinic.org.

• Wright, J. “Maternal stress doesn’t trigger autism.” Spectrum News (2012) – Reports epidemiological findings that acute stress in pregnancy showed no link to ASD thetransmitter.org.

• Fox 4 News (WFTX). “Study links prenatal stress to autism.” (2015) – Example of media attributing autism to stress + a drug, calling it a “new link” fox4now.com.

• Wedge, M. Mad in America blog. “Screen Time... A Trigger for Virtual Autism?” (2025) – Describes “virtual autism” concept (screens causing reversible ASD-like symptoms) madinamerica.com.

• Gaffney, T. “Screen time and autism…”, STAT Morning Rounds (Nov 5, 2024) – Summarizes study linking infant screen exposure with autism diagnoses, noting authors do not infer causation and point to confounders statnews.com.

• Waltz, M. “Mothers and Autism: Evolution of a Discourse of Blame.” AMA Journal of Ethics 17(4):353-358 (2015) – Historical review of mother-blaming in autism (refrigerator mother theory) and its fallacy journalofethics.ama-assn.org.

• Robinson-Agramonte, M. et al. “Immune Dysregulation in ASD: What Do We Know?” Int. J. Mol. Sci. 23(6):3033 (2022) – Reviews evidence linking autism with immune dysfunction and inflammation pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

• Bauman, M. et al. “Maternal immune activation and ASD: from rodents to primates.” Biol. Psychiatry 81(5):391-401 (2017) – Reports that maternal infection during pregnancy can elevate ASD risk in offspring; discusses animal models of maternal immune activation pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

• Dutheil, F. et al. “The Coronavirus might be paradoxically beneficial on the risk of autism.” J. Autism Dev. Disord. 51(5):1805-1807 (2021) – Notes that maternal exposure to air pollution is a well-established autism risk factor, with dose-response evidence pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

• Seneff, S. et al. “Empirical data confirm autism symptoms related to aluminum and acetaminophen exposure.” Entropy 14(11):2227-2253 (2012) – Controversial study suggesting correlation between vaccine aluminum adjuvants and autism rates mdpi.com.

• Cross River Therapy. “Does TV Cause Autism? Decoding the Enigma.” (2023) – Refutes the notion that screen time causes ASD, emphasizing lack of evidence and the need to focus on support rather than blame crossrivertherapy.com.

• NPR (Rob Stein). “Ancient miasma theory may help explain [RFK Jr.’s] strategy.” Weekend Edition (June 14, 2025) – Discusses miasma vs germ theory; experts note miasma was debunked when microbes discovered and warn against obfuscating modern science with “environmental poison” theories used improperly. Ironically, they try to pin this on Sec. Kennedy, who knows that genetics x environment can make individuals more susceptible to all manner of toxicants npr.org.