This week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to develop a “real-world data platform” using Medicare and Medicaid records to investigate “the root causes of autism.” The announcement comes after officials previously walked back statements about creating “national disease registries” to “track Americans with autism,” insisting that the Trump administration was not launching an autism registry.

However, on May 7, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled a partnership allowing researchers to use the federal health insurance data of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. With roughly 36 percent of Americans enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid, the platform could potentially include sensitive health information from a large portion of the U.S. population.

“We’re using this partnership to uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long peddled false conspiracy theories about autism,

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