Autism Research Initiative Update

Take this extremely seriously, as we have been for the last year

and a half, uh,

and, and more of the presidency. Um, at the NIH, uh, the,

the, what, what, what we've done is we have established a, uh,

the Autism Data

Science Initiative, which started w- uh, uh, almost a year more-- actually more

than a year ago, uh, where we funded a dozen and

more, uh,

major research teams to answer the question of what is the cause of autism.

Uh, it's a complicated biological phenomenon.

It's not going to be a simple answer.

Uh, it will have, as, as the secretary said, potentially genetic

predisposition, but that cannot possibly explain why we've

seen such a large rise

in autism. Uh, there must be some other environ-