What We Choose to Fund: Echoes of Eugenics in Modern Autism “Research”

How Debunked Science, Eugenic Beliefs, and Institutional Power Threaten Autistic Lives—Again

The CDC’s revival of debunked vaccine-autism research reveals a dangerous belief: that autistic lives are mistakes to prevent, not people to support. History echoes—erasure disguised as care. We must not look away.

Introduction

The recent announcement that the US CDC will allocate resources to investigate the thoroughly discredited link between vaccines and autism marks a chilling moment—not just for science, but for society at large. The fiction of a causal connection between childhood immunisations and autism has been dismantled repeatedly, its origins traced to fraudulent research, its claims refuted by decades of data. Yet, in 2025, this spectre rises again—not because there is scientific merit, but because belief demands it. A belief so entrenched, so politically protected, that it now commands the reallocation of public funds in service of a narrative that has already inflicted incalculable harm.

The framing is as predictable as it is dangerous. “Parents’ concerns” are presented as self-evidently valid, the emotional weight of their anxieties positioned above the collective knowledge of medical science and the lived experience of autistic people. There is no critical scrutiny, no acknowledgment of the power such a move grants to those who view autism not as a neurotype, but as a calamity. In bending to these voices, the CDC does more than reopen a dead question—it legitimises the notion that autism is a mistake, a theft, a tragedy. It invites society to consider, once again, how to prevent people like me from existing.

This isn’t science. It isn’t even politics. It is something much darker—a symptom of a belief system that sees autistic people as errors to be corrected, burdens to be lifted, or children to be freed from the grip of “the autism.” Behind the soft language of concern lies a brutal logic: that to love a child is to wish them different, and that any effort to change them—even to ensure they are never born—is an act of mercy. The belief that fuels this research is not benign. It is not passive. It is the same belief that, not so long ago, led to the elimination of those deemed unworthy of life. The echoes are growing louder.

Ominous Echoes: The Historical Parallel

This belief—that some lives are worth less, and that eliminating suffering means eliminating the person—has a precedent. It is not hyperbole to recall Aktion T4, the Nazi regime’s programme of so-called “euthanasia” targeting disabled people, including autistic children. These killings did not begin with soldiers or death camps, but with doctors, bureaucrats, and parents persuaded to see death as an act of mercy. Families were told that their disabled children could be “freed” from suffering, that life with disability was not truly life, and that a quiet death was a kindness—a release not only for the child, but for the family and the state. The belief that enabled this was cloaked in love, in paternalism, in clinical language that concealed the horror of what was being done.

It was not framed as extermination. It was framed as relief—backed by the pseudoscience of eugenics, which declared some lives unworthy and others ideal. And whilst the CDC is not proposing death camps or lethal injection, it is resurrecting that same belief: that autistic existence is undesirable, unacceptable, and must be prevented at all costs. When you centre the idea that autism is a tragedy—a deviation from an imagined norm—you open the door to every iteration of control and elimination. The path to mass harm is rarely paved with overt malice; more often, it begins with “what’s best for the child.”

It is worth remembering, too, that this belief did not stay confined to Nazi Germany. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., patriarch of one of America’s most powerful dynasties, openly admired Hitler’s economic achievements and held deeply antisemitic and isolationist views. As U.S. Ambassador to the UK from 1938 to 1940, he advocated appeasement, praised aspects of Nazi governance, and viewed democracy itself as on the brink of collapse. His resistance to U.S. intervention was not born of pacifism, but of a desire to preserve American interests—even if it meant accommodating a genocidal regime. His statements, meetings with Nazi officials, and belief in order over justice reveal a man willing to look away from atrocity so long as it served the right people.

Kennedy’s fall from grace did little to sever the ties between American eugenic thought and policy. It lived on in institutionalisation, forced sterilisation, and “treatment” programmes designed to suppress and erase disabled lives. And it lives on still—in every study that seeks to prevent autism, every policy that withholds support in favour of “early intervention,” and every narrative that centres the comfort of the neuro-majority over the existence of the neurodivergent.

These are not separate moments in history. They are part of a continuum of belief, rooted in the idea that difference must be corrected or erased, and that mercy can mean elimination. The echoes are not distant—they are loud, they are present, and they are growing.

The Mechanics of Belief: Then and Now

The belief that underpins this moment—the one driving the CDC’s decision—is not new. It has simply changed costume. Where once disabled children were “lovingly” put to death in the name of mercy, now vast sums are funnelled into research designed to prevent children like us from ever existing. Then, it was the state enacting “mercy killings” to free families from the burden of disability. Now, it is the state bankrolling “studies” that seek to ensure fewer autistic people are born, under the guise of science and concern. Then, pseudoscience was weaponised to justify elimination; now, debunked theories are revived and repackaged—not because they hold truth, but because they serve powerful interests.

This is not about curiosity or health. It is about profit and control. Academia, far from being a neutral arbiter, plays a central role in this. The paper mills churn out open access studies, many of dubious quality, designed to flood the discourse, muddying the waters so that truth becomes negotiable. “Big Autism”—a grotesque term for the sprawling network of foundations, research centres, “therapy” providers, and parent-led organisations—thrives on this chaos. For them, “awareness” campaigns, endless studies, and speculative treatments are highly profitable. There is no incentive to fund autistic lives; the real money lies in endless search for causation, prevention, and cure.

The eugenicists and these institutions are not strange bedfellows—they are one and the same, often collaborating directly, or at the very least propping each other up. A symbiotic relationship exists: eugenic ideologues demand action; academia and the autism industry provide the appearance of action; and money flows. What is marketed as care is in fact grift, sustained by the belief that autistic people are a problem to be solved. Not supported. Not valued. Solved.

In this fight, autistic people are outnumbered and outgunned. We face a hydra of institutions, industries, and ideologies invested in our erasure. We raise our voices, write our truths, and demand our right to exist, but we are met with a wall of capital, influence, and apathy. Still, we persist—because we must. Because we know where this belief leads, and because we know that our existence is not negotiable, no matter how profitable our absence may be.

The Cost: What Could Have Been

The money being funnelled into yet another study chasing a myth could have transformed lives. It could have been used to expand access to diagnosis, especially for adults who were overlooked in childhood and for marginalised communities routinely denied recognition and support. It could have funded housing programmes, mental health services, and employment initiatives tailored to the needs of autistic people, not to force assimilation, but to nurture autonomy. It could have provided scholarships and grants for those wishing to serve their own communities—autistic psychologists, therapists, and support workers who understand, intimately, the lives they aim to help.

Instead, it is spent to placate belief. Not just any belief, but one that endangers us—that seeks to prevent us, erase us, silence us. There is no investment in our futures, only in the fantasy of a world without us.

And it didn’t have to be this way.

Imagine a world where Grunya Sukhareva’s pioneering work was not plagiarised and suppressed, but honoured. Where her nuanced, humane understanding of autistic people as individuals with rich inner lives and potential set the tone for generations of research and care. Imagine if the work of Lev Vygotsky and his cohort—focused on inclusion, support, and the vital roles of difference in society—had shaped global policy. A world where the central question was not how do we make autistic people normal, but how do we help them thrive?

But that was not the path taken. Instead, Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger, steeped in eugenic thinking, became the voices the West chose to elevate. Their work stripped away humanity, reframed difference as deficit, and presented autistic people as problems to be managed or discarded. This aligned perfectly with the interests of American eugenicists, who saw in their theories a tool—a way to categorise, control, and ultimately diminish those who did not conform to narrow ideals of productivity and normativity.

This was the road chosen, not by accident, but by design. And now, nearly a century later, we live in the wreckage of that choice—still fighting for recognition, support, and dignity, while the apparatus of belief continues to consume resources, attention, and lives. The cost of what could have been—what should have been—is beyond measure. But we feel it, every day.

Final thoughts …

History rarely announces its return with fanfare. It doesn’t need to. More often, it slips quietly into the room, draped in the language of concern, cloaked in the garb of care, and armed with the tools of respectable science. The belief that fuels this latest study—the idea that autistic people should not exist, that we are problems to be prevented—has walked these halls before. It never left. It simply changed its face, adjusted its tone, and waited for the right moment to emerge once more.

We are told this is about understanding. About responding to “concerns.” About ensuring “no child is left behind.” But beneath the surface, we hear the same refrain—the same ominous echo that has haunted us for generations: you should not be here. Not as you are. Not in this world. And so, the machinery turns—funded by governments, sustained by institutions, cheered on by those who mistake erasure for love.

Belief that seeks to prevent us rather than support us does not lead to care. It leads only to elimination, whether by force, neglect, or pre-emption. We know this path. We have walked it. We have watched it devour our ancestors, our peers, our futures. And now, it calls again—not in shouts, but in whispers. Not with boots on cobblestones, but with grants, studies, and the cold rationality of those who see no place for us.

We must not look away. We must not be lulled by the softness of the language or the apparent legitimacy of the institutions involved. These echoes are loud. They are clear. And they will only grow stronger—unless we confront them now.