Dr. James McPartland, a clinical psychologist at the Yale School of Medicine, bashed claims made by President Donald Trump's FDA Commissioner about autism during an appearance on CNN on Monday.
McPartland was interviewed on CNN's "The Lead." His comments followed an interview CNN anchor Erica Hill conducted with FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, who defended several controversial points made in a recently released report from the Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., linking autism to Tylenol use during pregnancy.
One of Makary's claims that McPartland took issue with was the claim that "severe autism" doesn't exist in people over the age of 60.
"That's not correct," McPartland said. "There are many people with autism of all forms, including severe and profound autism, of all ages. In fact, when we look at how diagnostic trends have changed over time, that's the segment that has been most stable. More people with higher cognitive ability and language skills have been included in recent years."
McPartland also pushed back on claims that people in the Amish community do not suffer from autism.
"Because there is more genetic overlap between Amish people, there are specific studies that have focused on the Amish community to learn more about genes," he said.
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