‘A slippery slope to eugenics’: advocates reject RFK Jr’s national autism database

US health secretary claims data will be used for research but has not addressed privacy concerns and potential misuse

Autism researchers and advocates are pushing back against the creation of an autism database - meant to track the health of autistic people in a major research study - and pointing to the ways such databases could be misused.

While the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) denies it's a registry, the agency did confirm a sweeping database of autistic people will power a $50m study on autism. The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said last week that he plans to announce results from the study within months.