I'm proud to announce today that the NIH has launched the Autism Data Science Initiative to turbocharge autism research, devoting an additional $50 million to the cause of studying autism. Nearly 250 research teams from across the country applied, sent in their applications, and were peer-reviewed by the NIH review panels. The NIH peer reviewers chose the 13 best projects focused on root causes and therapies with replication and validation studies to guarantee gold standard science.
The studies feature a new kind of science called exposomics where scientists consider environmental and medical factors, nutrition, events during pregnancy in combination with biology and genetics to answer vital questions about autism. Science like this, conducted in partnership with families and physicians, is the best way to arrest and reverse the autism epidemic.
Autism spectrum disorder encompasses a very wide range of symptoms ranging from mild difficulties with social interactions to profoundly autistic children who experience severe disabilities in speech and behavior. Given this wide range of symptoms across the spectrum, it seems certain that there will be a wide range of biological contributors to explaining the cause.
The great thing about the new NIH initiative on autism is that scientists will use rigorous advanced methods in causal inference, machine learning, organoids, and other fresh approaches to the problem. The sharp rise in the prevalence of autism deserves an urgent response by the scientific community.
As Bobby said, the NIH has invested a lot of money to study autism over the years, but the research has not produced the answers that families and parents of autistic children deserve and autistic children themselves deserve. For too long, it's been taboo to ask some questions for fear the scientific work might reveal a politically incorrect answer. Because of this restricted focus in scientific investigations, the answers for families have been similarly restricted, often pointing families to behavioral therapies that don't work for every kid or suggest non-modifiable genetic factors as the cause. But genetics alone can't explain such a sharp rise in autism prevalence over just a few decades.
As the president said, in coming months and years, as NIH scientists learn more that can help autistic children and their families, we won't delay. Like scientists often like to do, I can say as a scientist myself, it's really tempting to delay, but in the face of a problem like this, you have to move fast. We will not delay before telling the American people about what we find. And we will win the public trust with transparency and rigor.
Already, our broadened focus on autism research has pointed to two items that will help families prevent and treat some cases of autism. I'll leave the good news on these two items to my close friends and colleagues, Dr. Makary and Dr. Oz. We've been working together closely on this problem for the past six months, and our cooperation represents an unprecedented collaboration with Secretary Kennedy's Department of Health and Human Services and with President Trump. I'm delighted to introduce Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who will tell you about these announcements of practical help for families with autism.
Great. Thank you, Dr. Bhattacharya. Mr. President, this is the start of a historic shift in medical culture. This administration is working together to ask big questions about why our nation's children are getting sick so fast. Too often, medicine is doing small, little studies, giving us answers we already knew. But we've got to make a difference. You've given us a charge to identify root causes and we are not going to stop so that we can end the suffering we are watching. And if you've seen a kid with autism with severe autism, it's hard to watch. Kids get frustrated. They get angry. They can be crying because they want to speak and they can't speak. It's hard to watch and it may be entirely preventable.
For an epidemiologist, that child is an expanding statistic. But for a child, it can be brutal to have autism. Today, the FDA is taking action to update the label on acetaminophen and sending a letter to all US doctors letting them know about the risks in pregnancy. We now have data we cannot ignore. There's a very large study, the Boston birth cohort, with researchers from Johns Hopkins, my former institution, and Boston University, found quote unquote consistent associations between acetaminophen in pregnancy and autism. And the nurse's health study, with researchers from Yale, Columbia, and Harvard, looking at 9,000 kids, found that acetaminophen use in pregnancy was associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. And four weeks ago, a Mount Sinai Harvard study reviewed all the existing literature and found the overwhelming body of evidence points to an association.
Sure, you'll be able to find a study to the contrary. That's how science works. But to quote the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, there is a causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. We cannot wait any longer. And honestly, there's been this perfunctory, reactionary, mindless practice in medicine. I learned it in medical school and residency: just treat all fevers, low-grade fevers, treat them with acetaminophen. Why? What are we doing? A study out of Hopkins actually showed that treating a fever can prolong the duration of illness in a young kid. Maybe that's because a fever is a body's natural way of ridding an infection. When my wife was pregnant and delivered our son a few months ago, they pushed her to take acetaminophen for a low-grade fever. She said no. And then they looked to me and I said, 'Absolutely not.'
I'm also here to announce good news. Today, the FDA is filing a federal register notice to change the label on an exciting treatment called prescription leucovorin so that it can be available to children with autism. You know, autism may also be due to an autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells. It's a fairly established, mature pathway. Again, we have a duty to let doctors and the public know we are going to change the label to make it available. Hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit. One study found that with kids with autism and chronic folate deficiency, two-thirds of kids with autism symptoms had improvement and some marked improvement. Mr. President, you told us to do what's medically right, to go bold and not worry about the corporations and the lobbyists, so that's what we're here doing today. Thank you, Mr. President.
