Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It’s maybe not all that surprising that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a man whose family history reads like a Shakespearean tragedy—has his mind steeped in conspiracy theories. When your father and uncle are both assassinated in broad daylight, when your family name itself is forever linked to American myth and murder, perhaps suspicion becomes a kind of inheritance. You start looking for patterns in the static, for secret causes behind public events. Maybe you even start to believe that every tragedy has an invisible hand behind it.

But RFK Jr.’s descent into the conspiratorial rabbit hole hasn’t been confined to the realm of politics or assassination lore. No, his particular obsession—the one that has defined his public crusades for years—is autism. Kennedy has clung to the long-debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, a theory that has been refuted by nearly every reputable medical and scientific body on the planet. Yet somehow, he continues to repackage the same paranoia under new labels. His latest claim? That circumcision might somehow cause autism. Yes, you read that right: circumcision.

It’s almost comical, if it weren’t so irresponsibly absurd. Is he suggesting that we trace autism all the way back to the first brisk in the Jewish community, before the birth of Christ? Because if circumcision were the cause, one would expect the ancient world to have been teeming with undiagnosed autism cases in the Bronze Age. This is the kind of pseudoscientific leap that would make even the most ardent conspiracy theorist pause and ask, “Wait, really?”

But of course, it doesn’t stop there. RFK Jr. has also decided to throw Tylenol into the mix—because apparently, nothing is safe from his scattershot suspicion. Perhaps it’s not the circumcision itself, it is the mild pain reliever, the male child is given after having their foreskin removed. He also has claimed that pregnant women that have taken Tylenol may be causing their unborn fetus to develop autism. Acetaminophen, a staple in American households for nearly 70 years, is now, in his mind, the culprit behind rising autism diagnoses. Never mind that autism is now better recognized, better diagnosed, and better understood as a spectrum condition—RFK Jr. needs a villain. And if it isn’t vaccines or circumcision, then it must be over-the-counter pain relief.

The irony is that Kennedy’s fixation on “what causes autism” reveals more about him than it does about autism itself. His thinking mirrors the very pathology of conspiratorial belief: when one story is disproven, the true believer simply shifts to another narrative that fits the same emotional need. There must be a cause. There must be blame. The world, to Kennedy, can’t just be complex—it has to be corrupted.

What’s especially tragic is that RFK Jr. could have been a powerful voice for reason and reform. His family name carries weight, his background commands attention, and his concerns about corporate influence and government transparency could have anchored serious discussions. But instead of using that platform to elevate understanding, he’s squandered it by peddling medical folklore and paranoia disguised as skepticism.

In the end, RFK Jr.’s crusades against vaccines, Tylenol, and now circumcision don’t expose new truths—they expose his own unhealed need to make sense of chaos. The man who lost so much to the unseen forces of violence is still looking for hidden hands everywhere. Unfortunately, in doing so, he’s become exactly what he once might have despised: a man chasing ghosts, mistaking shadows for evidence, and spreading fear in the name of truth.