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A new strategic plan proposed by a federal autism advisory committee could lead to a new direction in federal autism policy, a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) said today.
Dr. Elizabeth Mumper, a pediatrician and founder and CEO of the Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine, is one of the new members of the IACC appointed earlier this year by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mumper told The Defender:
“The IACC strategic plan for 2026 is 270 pages of spectacular work by the IACC chair Dr. Sylvia Fogel and the IACC Medical and Research subcommittee.
“It asks for a shift in priorities from the ‘autism is genetic and predetermined mindset’ to recognizing the phenomenon of neurodevelopmental regression and complex medical problems that coexist with autism and are eminently treatable.”
The draft report, released last week, calls for a shift in how autism is understood. The report recommends defining autism as a condition that may have more than one cause, and that may lead to multiple medical conditions.
“Autism can no longer be addressed adequately as either a research topic or a single service category,” the report states.
According to the report, the sharp rise in autism diagnoses — from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 31 children in 2022 — highlights the need for “a plan that can connect evidence to authority, authority to agency responsibility, and responsibility to measurable deliverables.”
The strategic plan will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of the IACC, for which a public comment period will remain open until July 24.
Strategic plan calls for individualized ‘precision medicine’ for autistic people
The IACC proposes creating a National Autism Precision Therapeutics Initiative to coordinate existing autism-related efforts across federal agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This initiative would help coordinate laboratory research, clinical testing, regulatory review and implementation of new treatments for autistic people.
The report also calls for the creation of a centralized federal autism website, autism.gov, which would contain resources for the public on topics including Medicaid programs for autistic people, housing and employment support, state-by-state service directories and diagnosis resources.
The proposed website would also publicly track whether federal agencies are implementing recommendations from the strategic plan. The website would be modeled after existing federal health websites such as cancer.gov and HIV.gov.
The strategic plan also calls for a shift toward “precision medicine,” noting that autism does not have one proven cause — no single theory explains all autism cases, and no single treatment is appropriate for all patients.
The report calls for studying and, where evidence supports it, treating biologically defined subgroups of people with autism on a precision basis supported by scientific evidence, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all treatment protocol.
The plan identifies 11 priorities research and clinical evaluation:
- Neurotransmission and psychiatric medications
- Immune, autoimmune and inflammatory biology
- Folate metabolism and one-carbon biology
- Gastrointestinal and microbiome health, and nutrition
- Neurodevelopmental regression, loss of previously acquired skills and health stabilization
- Metabolic and mitochondrial function and endocrine biology
- Autonomic dysfunction
- Sleep and circadian regulation
- Epilepsy (seizures)
- Motor planning and apraxia
- Better clinical methods, adaptive trial design and repurposed medications
Some of the report’s proposals for improved therapeutics and treatments for autistic people include the creation of nationwide clinical trial networks, improved safety monitoring of drugs and medications, and the development of improved clinical trial designs that would be better tailored to autism subgroups.
The report also proposes improved recognition and treatment of gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders, improved epilepsy screening, and improved motor assessment and evaluation of autonomic dysfunction.
Also contained in the report is a proposal for larger trials involving leucovorin. In September 2025, the FDA announced that it would approve leucovorin, a medication used in cancer treatments to counter the harmful side effects of other drugs, to treat people with autism who have cerebral folate deficiency.
However, in March, the FDA backed away from approving leucovorin for autistic people, based on “limited controlled trial evidence.”
Lifelong care, treatment prioritized
The strategic plan also sets forth nine “life course” priorities for future autism policy, arguing that such policy should cover the entire lifespan instead of focusing on infants and children.
These proposals include expanding the special education workforce, improving rural access to treatment and care, expanding specialist capacity, improving augmentative communication services for nonspeaking autistic people, better mental health services for autistic people, and increasing supportive housing and caregiving services.
Noting that relatively little federal attention has focused on autistic people as they age, the strategic plan calls for integrating autism into aging services, studying aging autistic adults, and improving Medicaid-related care and end-of-life planning for autistic people.
The strategic plan notes that all of its proposals take the form of recommendations, while Kennedy and the “authorized departments and agencies make the operational, regulatory, grantmaking, coverage, enforcement, and budget decisions.”
The IACC provides “advice and recommendations” to Kennedy on federal activities related to autism. The recommendations are nonbinding. But according to STAT, the group “wields significant power” as it “coordinates all autism-related programs in the federal health infrastructure” and nearly $2 billion in federal funding.
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Strategic plan linked to ongoing federal research examining causes of autism
The IACC developed its strategic plan in accordance with the Autism CARES Act of 2024, which funds federal autism activities, including the operation of IACC and ongoing federal research, through September 2029.
The act also set priorities for federal autism-related actions, including a requirement that federal autism planning accounts for the entire population of autistic people across their lifespan.
“Federal planning can no longer be confined to early childhood, conventional research portfolios, or narrow diagnostic categories. It must reach across the lifespan, from the prenatal period and early childhood through the transition to adulthood, adulthood, and later life, and it must account for families, caregivers, and clinical care,” the strategic plan states.
The act also expanded the federal autism research agenda, under which the NIH last year launched a $50 million autism initiative to fund research into its causes. The strategic plan calls for linking federal autism research priorities to “NIH budget” planning.
Mumper said she has “high hopes” that the NIH’s research “will be redirected to medical evaluations and treatment strategies that can be applied clinically to help the patients with autism who suffer.”
“It is also crucial to train the next generation of clinicians that autism is not merely a behavioral disorder, but has many medical components like gut inflammation, immune dysregulation, brain inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic abnormalities,” Mumper said.
In September 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it would study all possible causes of autism, including vaccines. That month, Kennedy said he was considering adding autism symptoms to the federal government’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
HHS also announced in September 2025 that it would add warnings to Tylenol and other products containing acetaminophen, advising the public about the possible link between that drug and autism.
Last month, it was reported that Kennedy was pushing for access to Americans’ health records to aid in vaccine-autism research. Reuters reported earlier this month that despite making few recent public comments about vaccines, Kennedy has prioritized federal research examining a possible link between vaccines and autism.
In a post on Substack, IACC member Ginger Taylor, former executive director of the Maine Center for Vaccine Choice, said the committee has faced obstacles from within the federal government since it first convened in January. She wrote:
“If you watch the meetings in their entirety, it becomes obvious who is there to obstruct and delay the committee’s work, and who is enthusiastic about serving our families, and giving people with autism a better day.
“I would love to talk about the insane shenanigans I see going on behind the scenes, but I want this committee to have the best chance of getting on its feet and doing the good work that needs to be done. So I’m going to be patient and continue to extend an olive branch to those who would like to leave the dark side.”
In March, a group of autism researchers and advocates with ties to vaccine advocate Dr. Paul Offit said they formed their own shadow autism research committee to protest changes Kennedy made to the IACC’s slate of members.
A month later, the IACC held its first meeting with its current lineup of members, hearing from nonspeaking autistic people and their parents and approving several proposals, including a formal definition of “profound autism,” referring to autistic people who require the greatest degree of support in their day-to-day lives.
Taylor called on the public to submit comments before the July 24 deadline, saying that those comments “give your friendlies on the committee power that we need to change the future of autism, and end the decades long status quo.”
Related articles in The Defender
- RFK Jr.’s New Autism Advisers Set Sights on ‘Many Unanswered Questions’
- ‘Profound Autism’: Will New Definition Lead to Better Care, Research?
- Autism Committee Hears From Non-Speakers, Parents During First Meeting Under RFK Jr.
- ‘Bizarre, Creepy’: Kennedy Critics Form Shadow Autism Research Panel
- ‘Uncompromising and Relentless’: HHS to Study All Possible Causes of Autism, Including Vaccines
- ‘Three-Way Collision’: How Genes, Mold and Vaccines Might Lead to Autism
