The final vote was 26 yes, 1 no, and 13 abstained. I want to sit with that number for a moment, because it tells you almost everything you need to know about the day.

The Room Was Heated, and It Should Have Been

This was not a quiet procedural meeting. It was a real, sometimes tense debate between public members and several federal members, playing out in real time in front of families who have waited decades for this level of federal attention.

Before the vote, the Committee reviewed public comments on the working draft. This round brought in more than 5,000 comments, a higher combined total than the past decade of IACC public comment periods put together. The overwhelming majority were in favor of the 2026-2028 Strategic Plan. Vaccines and vaccine injury were the second most common subject raised across those thousands of comments.

One Father’s Story Hit Home

One of the most compelling comments for me came from Mike Jakubowski, an autism father and former board member of Autism Health.

Mike spoke about something countless parents understand: receiving an autism diagnosis and then essentially being left to navigate an incredibly complicated system on your own.

He described physicians who had few answers, families being told their child’s autism was genetic, and the struggle to obtain appropriate medical care and services. He also called for centralized places where families could access knowledgeable providers, better information, and real support.

This is precisely why this Strategic Plan matters.

A diagnosis cannot be the end of the medical investigation.

Families deserve physicians who understand autism and its co-occurring conditions. They deserve navigation. They deserve services. And when a child experiences regression or develops serious medical problems, parents deserve more than, “That’s just autism.”

Vaccines and Regression Could No Longer Be Ignored

We also heard from Dr. Brian Hooker and Steve Kirsch, who urged IACC to give greater attention to vaccines in autism research.

Dr. Hooker’s submitted statement strongly supported the Plan’s focus on regression, profound autism, mitochondrial and metabolic function, gastrointestinal biology, environmental factors, and other areas, while arguing that vaccine exposures should be explicitly investigated within the environmental research agenda.

Steve Kirsch presented preliminary survey findings that he believes warrant independent replication and asked IACC to make such replication a priority. Those findings should be understood as claims presented in public comment, not established conclusions. That is precisely why independent, rigorous research matters.

For me, the larger principle is simple:

No scientifically plausible question should be considered too politically uncomfortable to investigate rigorously.

Response to Dr. Halladay

One of the written comments came from Dr. Alycia Halladay of the Autism Science Foundation, a twelve-page submission. I felt it was important to respond directly, in part because Dr. Paul Offit, a founding board member of that organization, has deep ties to pharmaceutical industry funding and is one of the founding board members. Here is what I said:

“I want to respond to Dr. Halladay’s comments because I believe it illustrates exactly why this Strategic Plan is necessary.

I do not dispute that genetics plays an important role in autism for some individuals. But Dr. Halladay states that a specific genetic variant can be identified as the primary cause in approximately 20% of autistic individuals. My question is: what about everyone else?

For decades, federal autism research has heavily prioritized genetics, with genetics and genomics accounting for approximately 38.5% of NIH autism research funding, while environmental factors received only about 5.8%. That is sad.

And I want to add something from my experience working directly with families: the parents I speak with who have pursued extensive genetic testing for their children overwhelmingly tell me that testing has provided no genetic explanation for their child’s autism. Their experiences matter, and they reinforce why we must investigate beyond genetics.

But this Plan is not anti-genetics. It recognizes that autism is heterogeneous and that genetic susceptibility may interact with immune, metabolic, mitochondrial, gastrointestinal, environmental, neurological, and developmental factors.

Families repeatedly report children who develop normally and then experience significant regression, losing language, motor abilities, cognition, and other previously acquired functions and we have a responsibility to investigate why.

We are not replacing genetics with another single theory of autism.

We are replacing genetic primacy with broader scientific inquiry.”

I am tired of genetics being treated as though it provides the answer for what happened to our children. For so many families, including mine, it does not. It is time for the federal research agenda to broaden its focus and seriously investigate the other biological and environmental factors that may be contributing to autism.

When Funding Became the Excuse

Toward the end of the meeting, several federal members raised concerns about funding as a reason for caution. That is the moment I lost my patience, and I said so:

“Due to the lack of research for vaccines, and the fact that a double-blinded placebo study has never been done on a single vaccine, my son (and many other children) suffered from a vaccine injury and regressed into a state of autism. My husband and I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his care. That should not be the responsibility of the parents. The federal government caused this and the federal government should pay for their mistakes. Not the parents.”

I want to be clear about why I said what I said. This is my position, born from what my family has lived through, and it is why I advocate as hard as I do for informed consent and medical freedom. Every family deserves the right to ask hard questions about what goes into their child’s body, and to get real answers instead of silence.

And then there is the money. Federal investment in Alzheimer’s and dementia research through the NIH stands at approximately $3.9 billion a year. Total federal spending and research allocations for autism across agencies like NIH and CDC has historically ranged between $390 million and $760 million annually. Autism is, according to the CDC, the fastest growing disability in this country. That gap is unacceptable, and I will keep saying so until it changes.

Thirteen Abstained

In the end, the Committee moved the Plan forward, with the exception of 1 no and 13 members who abstained from voting entirely. Most likely, these are the same 13 federal members who abstained at the last meeting in April. That consistency is disappointing. When you have the opportunity to stand behind a plan built to finally hold this system accountable, and you choose to stand behind nothing at all, that is its own kind of statement.

What Happens Next

After the August 27 vote, the next steps are essentially:

IACC adoption → finalization/publication → HHS and federal agencies → President AND Congress → agency implementation and appropriations/budget processes.

Secretary Kennedy is important, but he is not simply an approval gate that the Plan must clear before it can go to the President and then Congress. The statute says IACC makes recommendations to the Secretary and separately submits its Strategic Plan update to Congress and the President.

There is also an important second track involving money. Under the Autism CARES Act of 2024, for fiscal years 2026 through 2029, the NIH Director must prepare an annual autism budget estimate based on the IACC Strategic Plan and submit that estimate directly to the President for review and transmittal to Congress, after the Secretary and IACC have an opportunity to comment.

Ultimately, IACC’s recommendations are advisory. The Plan can influence what HHS, NIH, CDC, FDA, HRSA, CMS and other agencies prioritize, but IACC itself cannot appropriate money or compel agencies to implement every recommendation. Congress retains its legislative and appropriations powers, while executive agencies act within their statutory authorities and available funding. The law also directs the federal autism coordinating official to implement federal autism activities while taking the IACC Strategic Plan into account.

This Is Only the Beginning

I don’t expect every member of IACC to agree with me… only in a perfect world.

I don’t expect every researcher, federal agency, autism organization, clinician, or advocate to agree on what causes autism or which research questions deserve the greatest investment.

But I believe we should agree on one fundamental principle:

We cannot be afraid to ask questions.

We should study genetics.

We should study environmental influences.

We should study regression.

We should study immune and inflammatory pathways, mitochondrial and metabolic dysfunction, gastrointestinal conditions, epilepsy, communication, and motor planning.

We should rigorously investigate questions surrounding vaccines and other exposures rather than deciding that any subject is beyond scientific examination.

And at the same time, we must address the immediate realities of people living with autism: medical care, communication, safety, education, employment, housing, transportation, respite, caregiver support, and aging.

That is what makes this Strategic Plan different.

It doesn’t have to provide every answer today.

It needs to create a federal system willing to look for the answers and be accountable for what happens next.

Yesterday was contentious. It was emotional. At times, it was frustrating.

But ultimately, it was a great day.

The 2026–2028 IACC Strategic Plan is moving forward. And so are we.

In Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder of Autism Health and the Autism Health Summit
Board Certified Integrative Health Practitioner
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.AHSconference.com

The views expressed here are my own and reflect my personal advocacy for informed consent and medical freedom. They do not constitute medical advice.

I have read the full working draft of the IACC’s 2026–2028 Strategic Plan, all 336 pages of it, and I want to walk you through what is actually in it. Not the headlines. Not the summaries. The document itself.

As a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, I want to be careful here. What follows is my own read of a public working draft, offered as one voice among many on a committee that operates by consensus and public comment, not as a statement of where the Committee as a whole has landed. I encourage every one of you to read it yourself and form your own view.

Why This Plan Is So Important

The IACC Strategic Plan serves as a roadmap that helps guide federal priorities related to autism research, healthcare, services, and supports. While it does not create policy by itself, it helps inform future recommendations and priorities across multiple federal agencies.

That is why public feedback is so important.

The more families, caregivers, clinicians, researchers, and self-advocates who participate, the stronger the message that these priorities deserve continued attention.

The Finding That Should Matter Most to Every Family Reading This

Buried in the scientific foundation of the plan is a sentence that biomedical parents have been saying for decades: more than 90 percent of individuals diagnosed with autism also have at least one co-occurring medical, developmental, or psychiatric condition, and that clinical variation traces back to real biological variation across genetic, immune, metabolic, mitochondrial, gastrointestinal, and synaptic systems.

Read that again. This is not a fringe theory. This is the working federal framework. The plan explicitly rejects any one-size-fits-all model of autism and instead organizes its entire research agenda around the idea that autism arises through multiple biological pathways that require individualized, precision-based investigation and care. That is the language of integrative and biomedical medicine, now written into a federal strategic document.

Highlights of the Working Draft

The proposed Strategic Plan includes a broad range of priorities, including:

• A stronger focus on co-occurring medical conditions and whole-person health.

• Increased attention to gastrointestinal health, immune function, metabolism, mitochondrial function, sleep, epilepsy, and other medical conditions that frequently impact individuals with autism.

• Recognition of neurodevelopmental regression as a national research priority.

• Greater investment in precision medicine and personalized approaches to autism care.

• Improved access to diagnosis, treatment, and clinical care across the lifespan.

• Expanded support for nonspeaking and minimally speaking individuals through improved communication access.

• Better resources for caregivers, including respite services, family support, and navigation.

• Increased focus on housing, employment, transportation, aging, and adult services so individuals with autism receive support throughout every stage of life.

• Greater federal coordination, transparency, and accountability for implementing measurable outcomes. The plan also proposes two new federal systems worth knowing the names of: NAPTI, the National Autism Precision Therapeutics Initiative, meant to move validated science into actual clinical practice, and Autism.gov, a proposed federal portal modeled on sites like cancer.gov and VA.gov meant to help families actually navigate services instead of getting lost between agencies.

Where the Plan Stays Cautious

I want to be honest with you about this too. The plan is careful about the word “evidence.” It repeatedly draws a line between a plausible mechanism and a confirmed biomarker, and between a promising finding in a small study and a population-wide clinical recommendation. For families who have already lived the biomedical recovery journey, that caution can feel slow. But it is also the language that gives these domains staying power inside a federal bureaucracy that has spent decades dismissing GI, immune, and metabolic contributors to autism outright. Getting these categories named as national research priorities at all is not nothing.

Why Your Comment Still Matters

As a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, I have had the privilege of working alongside an extraordinary group of individuals who dedicated countless hours to developing this Working Draft. While every Strategic Plan can continue to evolve, I believe this document represents meaningful progress toward addressing many of the challenges autism families have been asking our federal agencies to recognize.

Now we need your help.

Your voice carries weight, especially for those who live this journey every day.

If you, your family, your friends, or anyone you know has been impacted by autism… Please take a few minutes to submit a respectful, positive public comment before Thursday, August 20th. Together, we can help ensure that autism families continue moving toward a future with better research, better healthcare, stronger supports, and greater hope for every individual impacted by autism.

Thank you for standing with our community.

In Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder of Autism Health and the Autism Health Summit
Board Certified Integrative Health Practitioner
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.iacc.hhs.gov

What the Executive Order Actually Does

This order builds on two earlier actions: a December 2025 presidential memorandum directing HHS to compare our vaccine schedule to peer developed nations and a May 2026 executive order that started the process of realigning our schedule. HHS’s scientific assessment found something that many of us have said for years. The United States recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, including more than twice as many doses as some European countries, and most of those peer nations achieve high vaccination rates through public trust and education rather than government mandates.

The new order establishes what it calls Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations, sorted into three categories:

Recommended for all children: measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Hib, pneumococcal disease, HPV, and varicella.

Recommended for certain high risk groups: RSV monoclonal antibodies, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal B, meningococcal ACWY, and dengue.

Shared clinical decision making, meaning a conversation between you and your doctor: hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID-19.

The order also states that once available, the combined MMR shot should be offered as three separate single-disease shots, and that to the maximum extent feasible, childhood immunizations should be spread across separate medical visits rather than stacked together.

Within 90 days, the HHS Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines has to bring the President a plan to:

• Offer single antigen vaccines starting with MMR, while still guaranteeing combination vaccines remain available for families who want them

• Reassess the timing and sequencing of the entire childhood schedule based on gold standard science

• Develop and study alternatives to aluminum adjuvants

• Continuously evaluate the risk and benefit profile of every childhood vaccine using both American and international data

• Improve vaccine safety monitoring and transparency

And then there is Section 4, titled “Maximizing Parental Choice over Childhood Vaccines.” This section directs the Attorney General to pursue legal action against state laws that conflict with parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection, specifically as those principles relate to medical and religious exemptions. It also directs the Departments of Justice, Education, and HHS to make sure states and local governments receiving federal funds are complying with those same protections.

At the signing event, Secretary Kennedy stated plainly that the administration is pursuing dozens of studies comparing health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. This is something Secretary Kennedy has pushed for since he took office, and it is finally being said out loud, in the Oval Office, on the record. This is what many of us have been asking for. Not because we already know what the data will show. Because nobody has ever been allowed to actually look.

What This Means for Californians

I want to be very clear here so nobody walks away with the wrong impression. This executive order does not change California law. It does not restore personal belief exemptions. It does not repeal SB 277, SB 276, or SB 714. It does not touch the CAIR ME database. California still runs its own school and childcare immunization requirements, full stop.

But something important shifted underneath us. Informed Policy Advocates, a California nonpartisan group tracking this closely, laid out why this matters even without an immediate change in state law. Back in 2025, Governor Newsom signed AB 144, which built California a framework to set its own preventive health and immunization recommendations independent of federal changes. In plain terms, California built itself an off ramp in case federal vaccine policy ever moved in a different direction. That moment has now arrived.

So the real question California lawmakers now have to answer is this. If the state chooses to keep its current approach rather than align with the new federal recommendations, what evidence supports that choice? What does California’s own data actually show? Are medical exemptions functioning the way they are supposed to? Are children with disabilities and complex medical histories being appropriately accommodated?

Section 4 adds real weight to that question. It puts parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodation, and equal protection squarely in the DOJ’s sights when it comes to state vaccine laws. That does not mean California’s laws have been ruled unlawful. It means those questions are now getting renewed federal attention, and states that receive federal funding and contracts are going to be expected to show their work.

IPA is asking Californians to push for an informational hearing in the legislature so this can happen in the open, with physicians, researchers, disability advocates, public health officials, and parents like us all in the room. I think that is exactly the right ask. We are not demanding the state do anything specific overnight. We are asking it to show its receipts. See more here

What SB 277 Never Touched: Children with IEPs

I want to add something here from my own experience as a mother, because this is a piece that gets lost in almost every conversation about SB 277 and SB 276. Both laws eliminated the personal belief exemption, but neither one applies to a child who qualifies for an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The text of SB 277 itself states that the law does not prohibit a student with an IEP from accessing the special education and related services the IEP requires and the California Department of Public Health has said directly that students with an IEP should continue receiving every service in that plan regardless of vaccination status. This is what protected my son. I had it written into Noah’s IEP that he was not to receive any further vaccinations, and the school was required to honor it, all the way through to his graduation. I will say this is not settled the same way everywhere. Interpretation of this provision has varied district to district, and some school districts have pushed back or handled it inconsistently, so this is not a blanket guarantee and every family’s situation is different. But to my knowledge, and I want to be honest that I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, a school cannot deny a child an IEP evaluation or the services in an existing IEP because of vaccination status. If your child has an IEP or you are pursuing one, this is worth understanding and worth having a direct conversation about with your district and, if needed, an education attorney familiar with SB 277 and IDEA.

What This Means for Us, as Autism Parents

Here is where I want to speak directly to you, mom to mom, and mom to dad.

For years, simply asking questions about the vaccine schedule got a parent labeled anti-science, or worse, a danger to public health. I lived that. I recovered my son Noah from a severe autism diagnosis through biomedical intervention, and I did it while being told by more than one professional that what happened to my own child in front of my own eyes could not possibly be connected to anything in his medical or vaccine history. This executive order does not resolve that argument. But it does something that has felt impossible for a very long time. It creates federal space for the actual research to happen.

A single antigen MMR option means families who have concerns about the combined shot, whether due to family history, a prior reaction, or simply wanting to slow down and space things out, will have a real choice instead of an all or nothing decision. Spacing vaccines across separate visits instead of stacking multiple shots in one appointment is something integrative and functional providers have recommended informally for years. Now it is federal policy language, not just a private conversation with your pediatrician.

The directive to study alternatives to aluminum adjuvants matters too. Aluminum has been one of the most persistent questions in the vaccine safety conversation, and it has been extremely difficult to get that research funded and taken seriously at the federal level. Having it written into an executive order changes the incentive structure for the agencies underneath it.

And then there is the vaccinated versus unvaccinated study. I know how loaded that phrase is, and I know the pushback it draws. But think about what we are actually asking for. Not a predetermined conclusion. A real comparison, done with rigor, that has simply never been allowed to happen in this country at scale.

None of this means the fight is over. Section 4 sets up a legal push, not an automatic outcome, and California in particular is going to resist. Federal recommendations are not federal law, and this order says so explicitly. But for the first time in a long time, the federal government is publicly acknowledging what integrative providers, functional medicine doctors, and warrior parents have been saying at kitchen tables for several decades. The schedule was too aggressive, the research was too thin, and parents deserve real informed consent, not a mandate dressed up as a recommendation.

Your Voice Still Matters… Please Send Your IACC Comment by August 20th

While all of this is happening at the federal level, there is something each of you can do right now that has nothing to do with waiting on Washington.

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), the federal advisory committee I currently serve on, has a draft 2026 to 2028 strategic plan open for public comment. The comment deadline is August 20th. Please send your comments to iaccpublicinquiries@mail.nih.gov before that date.

I know some of you have read through the plan and noticed the word “vaccines” is not written on the page. I understand the frustration. I want to explain why, because I think it matters that you understand the strategy, not just the outcome.

The IACC is a federal policy committee operating inside HHS. If this committee’s public strategic plan led with vaccines as a headline issue, there is a real possibility the entire committee gets dismissed or restructured before it can accomplish anything at all. I have watched how these processes work from the inside. Read between the lines of the plan. The concerns are there, in the language around environmental factors, biomedical research priorities, and root cause investigation. They are simply not shouted from the rooftop, because shouting it from the rooftop is how you lose your seat at the table entirely.

And there is a bigger picture here that I do not want to get lost. This plan runs 336 pages and it addresses a genuinely broad spectrum of what our community is dealing with right now. Access to services. The gap that leaves middle income families falling through the cracks. Support for adults aging out of the system. Research priorities across environmental and biomedical causes. This is not a plan that ignores vaccines out of denial. It is a plan built to survive long enough to actually do something for our kids, on every front, not just one.

Secretary Kennedy has already stated publicly that the administration is pursuing the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated research. That piece is already moving forward through a different channel. The IACC strategic plan does not need to carry that fight for it to still happen.

Please support this plan. Please send your comment before August 20th. Your voice, added to thousands of others, is what keeps this committee credible, funded, and able to keep pushing forward for our children.

None of this will happen overnight, and none of it is finished. But between this executive order, the research finally being pursued, and a strategic plan built to last, we have more real momentum than we have had in years. Keep showing up. Keep speaking up. Our kids are counting on it.

In Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder of Autism Health and the Autism Health Summit
Board Certified Integrative Health Practitioner
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.WarriorMom.com | www.AutismHealth.com | www.IACC.HHS.gov

This article reflects my personal views and advocacy as a parent, author, and member of the IACC. It is not medical advice. Please talk to your own child’s physician before making any changes to a vaccine schedule. The statements regarding vaccines and health outcomes in this article represent ongoing policy debate and my own position on informed consent and medical freedom, not settled scientific conclusions.

I’ve spent years in autism advocacy and the deeper I go into biomedical and functional approaches, the more I keep running into the same organism, over and over, sitting quietly underneath diagnoses that conventional medicine treats as separate, unrelated conditions. This article is my attempt to lay out what I’ve learned, what the research actually says, and where I think families and practitioners should be looking harder.

What Are We Actually Talking About When We Say “Parasites”?

Most people hear the word “parasite” and picture a tapeworm from a bad horror movie. That’s a small slice of it. Parasites fall into a few major categories:

Protozoa — microscopic, single-celled organisms. Examples include:

• Giardia duodenalis

• Entamoeba histolytica

• Cryptosporidium

• Toxoplasma gondii

• Plasmodium, which causes malaria

• Babesia

Some remain primarily in the gastrointestinal tract, while others can enter the bloodstream or tissues. These are often the ones doing the most damage because they can move through the body and, in some cases, cross into the central nervous system.

Helminths, or parasitic worms — this category breaks down into three groups:

Roundworms

• Ascaris

• Pinworms

• Hookworms

• Strongyloides

• Whipworms (Trichuris trichiura)

Tapeworms

• Taenia species

• Echinococcus

Flukes

• Schistosoma

• Liver flukes

• Lung flukes

The World Health Organization estimates that soil-transmitted helminths alone infect an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide, roughly a quarter of the global population.

Ectoparasites — organisms that live on rather than in the body, like lice, mites, and ticks. Ticks matter here because of what they carry, which I’ll get to.

People pick these up through contaminated water, undercooked meat and fish, soil contact, pets, sexual contact, insect bites, and even from person to person. Many infections are asymptomatic for years, which is exactly why they go undetected. A parasite that doesn’t kill you outright and doesn’t announce itself with a dramatic symptom, is a parasite that gets to stay.

What Do Parasites Actually Do to the Body and the Brain?

This is where it gets serious. Parasites are not passive freeloaders. They are actively working to survive, which means they are actively working against you.

In the gut, parasites damage the intestinal lining, disrupt the microbiome, compete for nutrients, and drive chronic inflammation. This shows up as bloating, irregular bowel movements, food sensitivities, and malabsorption of key nutrients like B12, iron, and zinc, all of which matter enormously for brain development and function.

In the immune system, some parasites are remarkably good at suppressing or confusing the immune response so the body doesn’t clear them. Chronic parasitic exposure has been associated with immune dysregulation, including patterns that look like autoimmune activity, because the immune system stays in a constant state of low-grade alert.

In the brain, this is where the research gets genuinely alarming and, in my opinion, underappreciated. Toxoplasma gondiiis the best-studied example. It’s estimated to infect roughly a third of the world’s population, and it has a documented ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and form cysts directly in brain tissue. Research has linked chronic Toxoplasmainfection to changes in dopamine metabolism, behavioral changes, and associations with conditions like schizophrenia and other psychiatric presentations. Naegleria fowleri, while rare, is a devastating example of a parasite that can invade the brain directly. Neurocysticercosis, caused by the larval form of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium, is one of the leading causes of acquired epilepsy worldwide when cysts form in brain tissue. It’s one of the most important examples of a parasite directly invading the central nervous system: the larval cysts develop in brain tissue and can produce seizures, headaches, brain swelling, hydrocephalus, increased intracranial pressure, and other neurological complications, depending on where in the brain the cysts form and how the immune system responds to them.

How neurocysticercosis is actually detected. This is one of the few parasitic brain conditions where imaging is a genuinely reliable diagnostic tool, not a gap in the system. MRI is generally the more sensitive option, particularly in the early, active stage of infection when the cyst is still fluid-filled. At that stage, MRI can often pick up a small dot inside the cyst called the scolex, the head of the larval tapeworm, which is a fairly distinctive finding. MRI is also better at showing surrounding brain swelling and inflammation, and at catching cysts in harder-to-see locations like the ventricles or brainstem. CT tends to be more useful in the later, calcified stage, when a dead cyst has hardened into a small dense spot that shows up clearly on CT but can be subtle on MRI. In practice, many clinicians use both: MRI to catch active or inflammatory lesions, and CT to confirm older, calcified ones. Imaging findings are typically combined with blood serology, an antibody test called EITB, and sometimes cerebrospinal fluid analysis if a lumbar puncture is performed, along with a patient’s exposure history, to reach a confirmed diagnosis.

The real gap here isn’t the technology. MRI and CT can and do detect these cysts. The gap is that a brain scan usually only gets ordered when someone presents with a clear clinical trigger, most often a new-onset seizure, and a radiologist who isn’t specifically trained to recognize the pattern, especially in regions where the condition is rare, can miss a small or calcified lesion without a high index of suspicion. This is a good example of why a family dealing with unexplained seizures, neurological symptoms, or developmental changes should specifically ask whether neurocysticercosis or another parasitic cause has been considered and imaged for, rather than assuming a standard scan automatically rules it out.

The mechanism matters here. Parasites don’t just sit in tissue doing nothing. They release metabolic waste products and toxins, they trigger chronic immune activation and neuroinflammation, and in the case of organisms capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, they physically occupy space in neural tissue. Chronic neuroinflammation is increasingly recognized across neurology and psychiatry as a contributor to cognitive changes, mood disorders, and developmental differences. When you have an organism capable of both provoking that inflammation and living inside the tissue itself, it deserves a lot more scrutiny than it currently gets.

What Health Conditions Get Linked to Parasites?

Depending on the organism, location, parasite burden, nutritional status, and immune response, symptoms can include:

• Abdominal pain

• Diarrhea

• Constipation

• Bloating

• Nausea

• Weight loss

• Nutritional deficiencies

• Iron-deficiency anemia

• Fatigue

• Skin problems

• Itching

• Fever

• Muscle aches

• Joint symptoms

• Coughing or respiratory symptoms

• Liver abnormalities

• Neurological symptoms

The list is longer than most people expect and it extends well beyond digestive complaints: chronic fatigue, unexplained anemia, IBS-type gut symptoms, skin conditions like eczema and hives, joint pain, anxiety and depression, brain fog, immune dysfunction, and in more severe cases, seizures and neurological decline. Because symptoms are so nonspecific, parasitic infection is one of the most commonly missed diagnoses in conventional medicine. Doctors are trained to test for parasites when there’s a clear travel history or GI red flag, not as a standard part of a chronic illness workup. That’s a gap I think needs to close.

Is Lyme Disease a Parasite?

I want to be precise about this one because it gets misunderstood constantly. Lyme disease itself is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a spiral-shaped bacterium, not a parasite. It’s transmitted by tick bites.

Where the confusion comes from is co-infections. Ticks frequently carry more than one pathogen at once and one of the most common co-infections is Babesia, which is a genuine parasite, a protozoan that infects red blood cells, similar in family to the organism that causes malaria. So someone diagnosed with Lyme disease may also be carrying an actual parasitic infection acquired from the same tick bite and many chronic Lyme presentations that don’t respond to standard antibiotic protocols turn out to involve Babesia or other co-infections that require entirely different treatment. Lyme and parasites travel together often enough that treating one without investigating the other is, in my view, incomplete care. But Lyme disease itself, by definition, is bacterial.

Biofilms: The Parasite’s Best Defense

A biofilm is a protective matrix, essentially a slime layer, that microorganisms build around themselves. Bacteria, fungi, and parasites can all produce biofilms, and they do it for one reason: survival. The biofilm is made of polysaccharides, proteins, and DNA that form a physical barrier around the organism.

• Viruses can get embedded inside bacterial or fungal biofilms. In a polymicrobial biofilm (which is very common in the body, especially in the gut, sinuses, and on mucosal surfaces), viruses can become physically trapped or protected within the matrix that bacteria or fungi build. This can shield them from the immune system and from antiviral treatment, similar to how the matrix protects the bacteria or parasites themselves.

This matters enormously for treatment. A biofilm can prevent immune cells from ever making contact with the organism hiding inside it. It can block antimicrobial and antiparasitic medications from reaching effective concentrations at the site of infection. It also allows organisms to communicate with each other and coordinate resistance, a process called quorum sensing. This is a major reason why a single round of antiparasitic medication often doesn’t fully resolve an infection. If the organism is sitting inside a biofilm, the drug may never reach it in a high enough concentration to do the job. This is why many integrative protocols specifically include biofilm-disrupting agents like enzymes (Biocicin, serrapeptase, nattokinase) or specific herbal compounds, taken before or alongside antiparasitic treatment, with the goal of breaking down that protective layer first.

Where Does Mold Fit In?

Mold and parasites frequently show up together in chronically ill patients and I think this connection deserves a lot more attention than it gets. Mold exposure, particularly to mycotoxin-producing species, suppresses immune function and drives systemic inflammation. A body already fighting mold toxicity has fewer resources left to clear a parasitic burden, and a weakened gut and immune terrain from mold exposure creates a more hospitable environment for parasites to establish themselves in the first place.

There’s also a biofilm connection. Mold itself can form biofilm-like colonies, and some practitioners in the integrative space believe mold and parasites can co-exist within shared biofilm structures in the gut and sinuses, each protecting the other. This is a newer area of clinical observation rather than a settled body of research, but it’s consistent with what many practitioners are seeing: patients with both mold illness and parasitic infection often don’t improve until both are addressed together.

• MARCoNS stands for Multiple Antibiotic Resistant Coagulase Negative Staphylococci, a biofilm-forming bacteria that colonizes deep in the sinus cavity, often in the same patients dealing with chronic mold exposure and parasitic burden. It's identified through a specialized deep nasal swab culture, and because it lives inside a protective biofilm, it's notoriously difficult to clear with standard antibiotics, another example of biofilm protection at work, just in the sinuses instead of the gut. In the functional and integrative medicine world, MARCoNS has become a key piece of the chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) picture associated with mold illness, since these bacteria are thought to interfere with the body's regulatory hormones and drive ongoing inflammation even after mold exposure itself has been addressed. It's worth noting that MARCoNS testing and treatment protocols come primarily out of the functional medicine space rather than mainstream infectious disease practice, so if you suspect it, working with a practitioner familiar with biofilm-based sinus infections and proper nasal culture technique matters, since a standard sinus culture can easily miss it.

Mebendazole and Ivermectin: Beyond Deworming

These two drugs are inexpensive, FDA-approved, and have decades of safety data behind them, which makes them attractive candidates for repurposing. I recommend compounded prescriptions vs. regular pharmaceutical (it’s cleaner).

What they’re proven for. Mebendazole and albendazole are standard treatment for intestinal helminths, roundworms, whipworms, hookworms, and pinworms. Ivermectin is the treatment of choice for Strongyloides stercoralis and is used against other parasitic worms and certain ectoparasites like scabies. An earlier randomized controlled trial published in Clinical Infectious Diseases found that combining ivermectin with either albendazole or mebendazole significantly improved cure rates against whipworm compared to either drug alone [1]. A more recent phase 2/3 trial covered by CIDRAP tested a fixed-dose combination tablet of ivermectin and albendazole in nearly 4,000 school-aged children across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mozambique, and found the combination more effective against whipworm and other soil-transmitted helminths than albendazole alone, with a comparable safety profile [2]. That’s a meaningful development because albendazole alone has been losing effectiveness against whipworm due to emerging resistance, and neither albendazole nor mebendazole works well against Strongyloides, which ivermectin handles well.

The cancer research. This is a genuinely active and expanding area of study, and it’s worth understanding what stage it’s actually at. Mebendazole works by disrupting microtubule formation, the same basic mechanism by which several established chemotherapy drugs work, which is part of why researchers got interested in it for cancer in the first place. A comprehensive 2021 review in the Korean Journal of Parasitology laid out the case for both albendazole and mebendazole as anti-cancer agents, summarizing evidence across a wide range of cancers including glioma and other brain cancers, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, leukemia, and more [3]. A randomized, placebo-controlled trial in metastatic colorectal cancer patients found that adding mebendazole to standard chemotherapy improved overall response rates and progression-free survival compared to chemotherapy alone. A 2023 review in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences highlighted mebendazole’s ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, which makes it a particularly interesting candidate for brain cancers like glioma, where getting drugs past that barrier is one of the biggest treatment obstacles. More recently, a prospective observational cohort study looked at real-world outcomes in cancer patients using ivermectin and mebendazole together and reported high rates of self-reported clinical benefit and good tolerability, though the authors themselves were clear that this kind of study is hypothesis-generating, not proof of efficacy and that randomized controlled trials are still needed.

What I Heard From Doctors in Mexico

I recently sat down with a team of doctors in Mexico who have spent three years studying over 350 individuals with autism, looking specifically at parasitic burden. What they described to me was a strikingly consistent pattern of parasites present in the children they evaluated, including evidence they connected to the brain. I want to be honest that this is clinical experience shared with me directly, not a published, peer-reviewed study I can point you to and let you read the methodology yourself. I take it seriously because it lines up with a broader pattern I’ve seen again and again in this field: gut dysfunction, immune dysregulation, and neuroinflammation showing up together in individuals with autism, with parasitic infection sitting underneath a lot of it and going completely unscreened in standard care. I’d like to see this work published and replicated, because if what they’re observing holds up under peer review, it has enormous implications for how we evaluate and treat autism. Until then, I’m sharing it as exactly what it is: a compelling clinical observation from doctors doing the work, worth pursuing hard, not yet a proven facts.

A Retired Mortician’s Stories

Recently, I came across a Facebook post from a retired mortician, a woman who spent her career embalming and preparing bodies for viewing. Now retired, she’s started sharing some of what she saw and it’s quite graphic. Bodies that came in with a cause of death listed simply as “natural causes,” where she found extensive parasitic infestation during the embalming process. Tumors that, when handled, showed signs of parasitic presence.

I share this because it’s a powerful, human illustration of something the research already points to: parasites are far more common in the general population, including people who never had any reason to suspect they carried one, than our medical system currently acknowledges. I want to be careful here too. Her accounts are anecdotal, one person’s firsthand observations over a career, not a clinical study, and I can’t verify the specifics of what she describes. But anecdotes like hers are exactly the kind of thing that should push us toward asking better questions and funding real research into how common parasitic infection actually is in the general population and how often it’s an unrecognized contributor to chronic illness and cancer. If a huge percentage of “natural causes” deaths involve heavy, undetected parasitic loads, that is a public health question worth taking seriously, not dismissing.

How to Actually Treat Parasites in the Body and Brain

There is no single silver bullet here, and I say that as someone who has looked at this from many angles. Different parasites respond to different approaches, and biofilm disruption matters as much as the antiparasitic agent itself. Here’s what’s out there.

Conventional pharmaceutical antiparasitics. Mebendazole, albendazole, ivermectin, and praziquantel (used specifically for tapeworms and flukes) are the gold standard for confirmed parasitic infections and have the strongest evidence base for actually eliminating specific organisms. These should be used under medical supervision, ideally guided by stool testing, blood work, or other diagnostic evaluation to identify what you’re actually dealing with.

Herbal antiparasitics. Black walnut hull, wormwood (Artemisia), clove, and food-grade diatomaceous earth are traditional and widely used in integrative protocols. Berberine-containing herbs like goldenseal and Oregon grape root have documented antimicrobial and antiparasitic activity in laboratory research. Many practitioners combine these into rotating protocols on the theory that parasites can develop tolerance to a single agent used continuously, and rotation helps prevent that.

Biofilm disruptors. Because biofilms shield parasites from both the immune system and medication, many integrative protocols use enzyme-based biofilm disruptors like biocidin, serrapeptase and nattokinase, or specific herbal biofilm-busting formulas, taken before or alongside antiparasitic treatment. The logic is straightforward: break down the shield first, then the antiparasitic agent has a real chance to reach the organism.

Binders. As parasites die off, whether from pharmaceutical or herbal treatment, they release toxins that need to be captured and removed from the body rather than reabsorbed. Activated charcoal, bentonite clay, and zeolite are commonly used binders during a parasite protocol to reduce die-off symptoms, sometimes called a Herxheimer reaction and support the detox pathways doing the actual clearing. Most binders are not selective. They will also bind onto medications and supplements, so they should be taken several hours apart from anything else you're on to avoid reducing its effectiveness. CellCore makes a BioToxin Binder formulated to bind only to toxins rather than medications or supplements, which is worth knowing about for anyone managing a binder protocol alongside other daily medications.

CellCore and similar functional protocols. CellCore Biosciences and comparable functional medicine companies design multi-phase protocols that typically move through gut terrain support, biofilm disruption, binder use, and then antimicrobial or antiparasitic phases in careful sequence, rather than throwing everything at the body at once. Practitioners who use these report that sequencing matters enormously, that hitting parasites hard before opening drainage pathways can make people much sicker rather than better. This is a structured, terrain-based philosophy that many integrative and functional medicine practitioners find effective in practice, worth exploring with a qualified provider who can guide dosing and sequencing for your specific situation.

Fasting and dietary approaches. Intermittent and extended fasting is thought by many practitioners to create an inhospitable environment for parasites by cutting off their food supply and simultaneously upregulating autophagy, the body’s own cellular cleanup process. A low-sugar, whole-foods diet is a consistent recommendation across nearly every parasite protocol, conventional and integrative alike, because sugar feeds many of the organisms in question. Pumpkin seeds, garlic, and papaya seeds are traditional dietary antiparasitics with some laboratory support behind their mechanisms.

Sauna and detox support. Infrared sauna and other detox-supportive practices are commonly layered into parasite protocols to support the liver, lymphatic system, and skin as elimination pathways during die-off.

The most important principle across all of these approaches is sequencing and support. Killing parasites without supporting drainage and detox pathways, and without addressing the biofilm protecting them, is a recipe for feeling worse and not actually solving the problem.

Prevention and Regular Cleansing

Prevention starts with the basics: thoroughly cooking meat and fish, washing produce, using filtered or treated water, practicing good hand hygiene, especially around pets and soil, and being cautious with food and water when traveling internationally.

For ongoing maintenance, many integrative practitioners recommend a seasonal parasite cleanse, often timed around the full moon based on traditional observations that some parasites are more active during that cycle, using a rotating herbal protocol for one to two weeks, several times a year, rather than a single annual push. Supporting the terrain year-round matters just as much as any cleanse: a healthy gut microbiome, adequate stomach acid, and a well-functioning immune system are the body’s first line of defense against parasites establishing themselves in the first place. Regular biofilm disruption and binder use, even outside of an active treatment phase, can help prevent low-level parasitic colonization from building into a bigger burden over time.

Where I Land on This

Parasites are common, they are underdiagnosed, and their potential role in chronic illness, neurological conditions, and even cancer deserves far more research funding and far more attention from conventional medicine than it currently gets. The emerging research on mebendazole and ivermectin in oncology is genuinely exciting and should be pursued aggressively with proper trials. The clinical observations coming out of integrative and functional medicine, including what I heard directly from the doctors in Mexico, point toward a piece of the chronic illness and autism puzzle that mainstream medicine has largely ignored.

I’m not going to pretend every question here is settled. Some of what I’ve shared is hard science. Some of it is clinical observation and anecdote that deserves to be taken seriously and investigated further, not dismissed and not treated as proven fact either. That’s exactly the kind of honest, both-things-can-be-true approach I think this field needs more of. Ask questions. Get tested. Talk to a practitioner who takes this seriously. Your body has been trying to tell you something, and it might be time to listen.

In Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder of Autism Health and the Autism Health Summit
Board Certified Integrative Health Practitioner
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.PurHealth.com | www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. I am not a physician. The medications, supplements, protocols, and therapies discussed here, including but not limited to mebendazole, ivermectin, herbal antiparasitics, biofilm disruptors, binders, fasting, and functional medicine protocols, carry risks, contraindications, and potential interactions with other medications and health conditions. Some uses described (such as antiparasitic drugs for cancer) are investigational, off-label, and not FDA-approved for that purpose. Do not start, stop, or change any medication, supplement, or treatment regimen, for yourself or your child, without first consulting a qualified physician or licensed healthcare provider familiar with your full medical history. Clinical accounts and personal stories referenced in this article, including secondhand accounts, are shared as anecdotal and have not been independently verified by me or published in peer-reviewed literature unless a source is explicitly cited. Individual results vary, and nothing in this article should be construed as a guarantee of any outcome.

Sources

[1] Knopp S, Mohammed KA, Speich B, et al. Albendazole and mebendazole administered alone or in combination with ivermectin against Trichuris trichiura: a randomized controlled trial. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2010;51(12):1420-1428. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21062129/

[2] Fixed-dose tablet shows promise against intestinal worms. CIDRAP, University of Minnesota. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/misc-emerging-topics/fixed-dose-tablet-shows-promise-against-intestinal-worms

[3] Chai JY, Jung BK, Hong SJ. Albendazole and Mebendazole as Anti-Parasitic and Anti-Cancer Agents: An Update. Korean Journal of Parasitology. 2021;59(3):189-225. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8255490/

[4] Kalula A, et al. Mebendazole; from an anti-parasitic drug to a promising candidate for drug repurposing in colorectal cancer. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35385794/

[5] Emerging Perspectives on the Antiparasitic Mebendazole as a Repurposed Drug for the Treatment of Brain Cancers. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2023;24(2):1334. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36674870/

[6] Real-world Clinical Outcomes of Ivermectin and Mebendazole in Cancer Patients: Results from a Prospective Observational Cohort. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42203321/

[7] Guerini AE, et al. Mebendazole as a Candidate for Drug Repurposing in Oncology: An Extensive Review of Current Literature. Cancers (Basel). 2019;11(9). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31480477/

As a public member of the IACC, as the mother of a son with regressive autism, and as someone who has spent years advocating for families impacted by autism, I feel compelled to respond.

Not because I believe the IACC should be excused from feedback.

It absolutely should not.

Public feedback is important. Public comments are important. Disagreement is important. In fact, public participation is built into the IACC process.

But criticism should be based on an accurate understanding of what the IACC is, what authority it actually has, what this Strategic Plan contains, and what the Committee is attempting to accomplish.

The suggestion that this IACC is somehow “not doing its job” because the word vaccines does not currently appear in the 336-page working draft ignores both the structure of the IACC and the extraordinary breadth of what is actually contained in this document.

And I believe that criticism deserves a response.

What these articles are missing

Here’s what frustrates me most about the current negative statements. They are so narrowly focused on one issue that they miss the scale of what this plan is actually trying to do for our families.

This draft covers nine full life course domains: timely and equitable diagnosis, special education and IDEA implementation, communication access for nonspeaking and minimally speaking individuals, co-occurring mental health conditions and suicide prevention, housing supply and caregiver succession for autistic adults, caregiver stabilization and respite, employment and workforce participation, aging and later life health for older autistic adults, and transportation and mobility access.

Read that list again. Housing supply for autistic adults when their parents can no longer care for them. Caregiver succession planning. Crisis care and suicide prevention. Workforce and employment supports. Later life health for autistic adults who are now aging into their 40s, 50s, and 60s with almost no infrastructure built for them.

These are not side issues. These are the issues I hear about constantly from families in our community, the ones who are terrified about what happens to their adult child with autism when they themselves are gone. This plan is the first one built to actually track and enforce federal accountability on all of it, citing the Autism CARES Act of 2024 and a 2024 GAO finding that past IACC plans described activities without ever measuring outcomes. That is a real and important shift. It deserved coverage. Instead it got buried under a single missing word.

On the structure of the committee itself

Recent articles talk about the IACC as if it is a single monolithic body that unilaterally decides what NIH studies and what it doesn’t. That is not how this committee works, and it never has been.

The IACC is a federal advisory committee established by statute. It is made up of federal members representing agencies like NIH, CDC, FDA, HRSA, and CMS, alongside 20 public members (such as myself) representing the autism community, researchers, families, and advocates. Its legal authority is to monitor federal autism activities, convene federal and public stakeholders, evaluate progress, advise the HHS Secretary, and recommend coordinated action. It does not have the authority to direct or compel any agency to fund or study anything specific, and this plan says so explicitly. None of us on this committee, federal or public, can wave a wand and add a line item to NIH’s budget. What we can do is put pressure, evidence, and public voice behind priorities so they show up in the professional judgment budget estimate NIH is required to build from this plan under the CARES Act.

If you don’t understand that structure, it is very easy to look at a 336 page document and conclude the committee is asleep at the wheel. But it isn’t. It is working within a real statutory framework, with real limits, trying to move a massive and historically fragmented federal system toward something coordinated and measurable. That is slow, unglamorous work. But it is also the work.

Now, Let’s Talk About the “Elephant in the Room”

Recent articles focuse heavily on one fact: the current working draft does not specifically use the word “vaccines.”

That is true.

But from that fact, readers are being encouraged to conclude that the IACC is ignoring environmental contributors to autism.

That conclusion is not supported by the document.

There is an entire section titled:

“Contributing Factors and Causality.”

There is another section titled:

“Environmental Research Priorities.”

The plan explicitly states:

“Autism is heterogeneous in its biology and its causation.”

It then describes autism as potentially arising through interacting developmental pathways involving genetic susceptibility, biological vulnerability, environmental influence, and developmental timing.

The document goes further…

It specifically discusses prenatal and early-life environmental exposures, collectively described as the exposome, and their potential interactions with genetics, the maternal microbiome, immune function, metabolism, and neurodevelopment.

Most importantly, the plan does not declare autism to be a purely genetic condition.

Quite the opposite actually.

It states that a strategy confined to gene discovery would be incomplete and calls for attention to environmental, immune, metabolic, microbial, and other biological inputs.

So the claim that environmental factors are simply being ignored does not survive a careful reading of the document.

Neurodevelopmental Regression Is Being Elevated to a National Priority

This is another point that has been almost completely lost in the criticism.

For decades, parents have described children who developed normally and then experienced a significant loss of language, social engagement, motor abilities, regulation, or other previously acquired skills.

Too often those parents have felt dismissed.

This Strategic Plan does not dismiss regression by any means.

It elevates neurodevelopmental regression to a major federal research and clinical priority.

The table of contents alone shows an entire section devoted to:

“Neurodevelopmental Regression: A National Priority for Precision Medicine, Early Intervention, and Therapeutic Development.”

It proposes a National Neurodevelopmental Regression Initiative, followed immediately by dedicated environmental and genetics research priorities.

That is not insignificant.

For families who have spent years saying, “My child changed. Something happened. Please investigate why,” creating a federal framework for studying regression, biological subgroups, developmental timing, environmental exposures, immune activation, metabolism, mitochondrial function, microbiome changes and other possible contributors represents a major shift in direction.

That deserves acknowledgment. And YES, we are addressing this issue.

Autism Is Bigger Than One Question

I understand why vaccine injury is an intensely important issue for many families because I have lived it. I even wrote the book on it.

I understand why parents want it investigated.

I support rigorous investigation of environmental contributors to autism and believe parents deserve answers to questions that have remained unresolved for far too long.

But here is where I disagree with the recent attacks:

The IACC cannot responsibly reduce the entire federal autism agenda to one issue.

There are millions of autistic individuals and families living with urgent needs right now.

A mother caring for a profoundly autistic 30-year-old son is wondering what happens when she passes on.

A father is wondering where his nonspeaking adult daughter will live when he is not longer with us.

Families are sitting on waiting lists for services for years and are exhausted.

Parents cannot find respite care and states are limiting services.

Adults with autism are aging out of school-based programs and entering systems that were never designed for them.

People with autism are suffering from epilepsy, severe gastrointestinal disorders, sleep disorders, metabolic abnormalities, mental health crises, communication barriers and other co-occurring medical conditions that are too often dismissed as “just autism.”

Nonspeaking individuals are still fighting to be heard.

Families are facing caregiver burnout.

Adults with profound autism need supported housing.

Older autistic adults are entering an aging and healthcare system that is largely unprepared for them.

We do not have the luxury of pretending those problems don’t exist.

My Goal as an IACC Member

I am not asking anyone to stand down from the vaccine issue. I’ve spent 18 years in this fight and I understand exactly why so many parents believe their child was vaccine injured. If that’s your story, tell it, and send it to the IACC before the August 20th deadline. That is a legitimate and necessary use of this comment period and I mean that.

What I am asking is that we stop mistaking an open draft for a closed door and stop mistaking a committee working through a genuine statutory process for a committee that isn’t listening. We have real, urgent work in front of us: housing for our aging kids, crisis care, caregiver support, workforce access, and so much more. That work is in this plan because people like you fought for it to be there over the last 20 years of comments and testimony that built this document. Let’s not burn down a real opportunity to finish that work over an incomplete read of 336 pages.

Submit your comment. Read the draft yourself before you decide what it says. And hold all of us, myself included, to the same standard of getting it right before we hit publish.

Comments on the 2026-2028 IACC Strategic Plan working draft are due August 20, 2026, to IACCPublicInquiries@mail.nih.gov.

A Final Word

I did not accept a position on the IACC to defend the status quo. I accepted it because I believe the status quo has failed far too many individuals with autism and their families.

As the mother of a son with regressive autism, I have lived this journey for years. I know what it feels like to search for answers, question what happened to your child, fight for appropriate medical care, and refuse to accept that nothing more can be done. Those experiences are exactly why I will continue advocating for better research, greater transparency, serious investigation into environmental and biological contributors to autism, and meaningful accountability from our federal agencies.

But advocacy also means recognizing the families who need help today.

It means fighting for the profoundly autistic adult whose parents are terrified about what will happen when they are gone. It means addressing housing, respite care, communication, co-occurring medical conditions, caregiver support, employment, safety, and the enormous crisis facing autistic individuals as they transition into adulthood and eventually into old age.

We should not have to choose between finding answers about what contributes to autism and improving the lives of people living with autism right now.

We must do both.

I welcome constructive feedback. I welcome scientific debate. I welcome public participation. And I will continue listening to parents and individuals with autism whose voices have too often been ignored.

But I also ask those who share our desire for change to recognize who the real opposition is. It is not the parents, advocates, researchers, and public members sitting at the table trying to move autism policy forward.

We are supposed to be on the same team.

There is too much at stake — and too many families depending on us — to spend our energy tearing one another down when we should be working together to demand answers, accountability, better science, better care, and a better future.

Our families have waited long enough. Now is the time to work together and get this right.

In Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Public Member, Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
Founder & President, Autism Health, Inc.
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom
Mother & Autism Advocate

www.AutismHealth.com | www.AHSconference.com | www.WarriorMom.com

For decades, researchers viewed the digestive tract as little more than a system responsible for breaking down food and absorbing nutrients. Today, we know the gut is far more than that. It is home to trillions of microorganisms, produces powerful signaling molecules, houses nearly 70% of the body’s immune cells, communicates directly with the brain, and plays a vital role in regulating inflammation throughout the body.

Think of the brain as the command center, sitting at the top, sending orders down to the rest of the body. But anyone who has watched a child’s behavior, focus, and language shift when you change what is in their gut knows the truth is far more interesting than that. The gut and the brain are in constant conversation. And in many cases, the gut is doing a lot more of the talking than we ever gave it credit for.

This is not fringe science anymore. It is one of the most active areas of research in medicine, and for families impacted by autism, it may be one of the most important. So let me walk you through how this actually works, in plain language, and then I will tell you what it meant for my own son.

The Gut Microbiome: A Living Ecosystem

Inside your digestive tract lives a vast community of microorganisms, trillions of bacteria, along with fungi and other microbes, collectively called the gut microbiome. These are not passive passengers. They help digest your food, train your immune system, produce vitamins, and manufacture chemical messengers that travel to and influence the brain.

A healthy microbiome is a balanced one, rich in diversity, with plenty of beneficial bacteria keeping the harmful ones in check. When that balance tips, when the good bacteria are crowded out and the wrong species take over, we call it dysbiosis. And dysbiosis has been linked, again and again, to problems that reach far beyond the gut.

Read more

That is exactly what happened this month. The Profound Autism Alliance, joined by the Autism Science Foundation, Autism Society of America, the National Council on Severe Autism, the Coalition of Autism Scientists, Autism Speaks, and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, released a joint statement asking HHS and the IACC to extend the public comment period on the new Draft Strategic Plan from four days to ninety.

Ninety days! There is no precedent for that request, and the record proves it.

The Historical Record Does Not Support a 90 Day Extension

In 2016, the IACC held a 45 day comment period. In 2021, it held a 61 day period. Neither of those was a review of a finished draft plan. Both were requests for priorities before the drafting process even began. In both of those notices, the phrase “within 90 days” referred to how long federal staff had to process and post the comments that came in, not how long the public had to submit them. The Federal Advisory Committee Act itself does not set a specific timeline for posting meeting materials or accepting public comment. A 90 day comment period on a completed Working Draft has never happened in the history of this committee. PAA is not asking for something that has been done before. They are asking for something new, and framing it as standard practice.

Four Days Was Not Our Choice Either

I will say plainly that four days is too short, and it is not the timeline current IACC members wanted. We pushed for more time and more public access at every step, and we ran into delay after delay along the way. Federal staff took weeks to get the working groups started. Our early requests to extend the comment window were denied. Materials were ready and sat unposted longer than they should have.

Here is the specific record. We handed the draft to ONAC in the early morning hours of July 17 and asked, twice that same day, that it be posted immediately so stakeholders would have every possible day to review it. It was not posted until midday on July 20. Three days were lost to bureaucratic slowness, not to any decision made by the current committee. If the federal government had moved with the same urgency the public has been demanding for twenty years, this would not be an issue at all. The blame for the compressed timeline belongs with the federal process that created it, not with the Working Draft itself, and it should not be used as a reason to stall the plan any further.

The July 31 IACC meeting has now been postponed, with a new date still to be determined, so the public can have a minimum of 30 days to respond. That is a real, workable window, one we did not want to see pushed back after the work it took to get this plan drafted and posted in the first place. But it is a fair window nonetheless. It is not the four days everyone is reacting to and it is nowhere close to the unprecedented 90 days PAA is asking for.

Timing Is Not a Technicality

This matters for a reason beyond fairness. The Autism CARES Act of 2024 requires NIH’s annual autism research budget estimates to be developed pursuant to the IACC Strategic Plan. Every month this plan sits in limbo is a month that funding decisions are made without the priorities our community fought to get into this document. Current IACC members take that statutory responsibility seriously and we understand exactly what further delay costs.

Where Was This Urgency Two Years Ago?

Here is the part that should bother every parent reading this. The IACC’s 2024 to 2025 Strategic Plan Update was approved back in September 2024, yet it was never released to the public. Not then, not since. Nearly two years have passed, and there has been no public campaign from PAA or from any of these seven organizations, demanding that plan be released or asking for accountability for that failure. Silence for two years on a document that was fully approved and then buried, followed by urgent demands for 90 days to review a document that has, in fact, already been made public. That contrast speaks for itself.

This Is a Working Draft, Not a Final Plan

The current draft is not final. It reflects twenty years of public input, proposals brought forward by IACC members, working group discussions, and priorities adopted in open public meetings. It puts profound autism, regression, complex medical conditions, communication needs, housing, and caregiver stability at the center where they belong, instead of treating them as an afterthought. It does not oppose genetics or basic science. It does not claim there is one single cause of regression. It does not endorse any one communication method over another. And none of its recommendations are binding directives to any agency. It is a roadmap, built from what our community has been saying for two decades.

What You Can Do Right Now

The plan needs your voice, not ours alone. Comments must reflect your own experience in your own words, and they should be sent to IACCPublicInquiries@mail.nih.gov, kept to 1,000 words or fewer. Tell them your connection to autism, describe one concrete challenge you or your family faces, and explain which priorities matter to you and why they cannot wait any longer. A few worth considering:

• The true scale of rising prevalence, and better characterization of profound autism, regression, and co-occurring conditions across the lifespan

• Neurodevelopmental regression, which impacts an estimated 30 to 40 percent of autistic children, treated as the national priority it should already be

• Research into immune, metabolic, and other biological triggers, and why recovery varies so widely from child to child

• Full inclusion of people with minimal or unreliable speech and complex medical needs in research and policy, not just those at the mild end of the spectrum

• Co-occurring medical conditions like gastrointestinal disease, epilepsy, sleep disorders, and pain, so they stop being dismissed as “just autism”

• A more balanced NIH portfolio that funds translation and treatment development alongside basic science

• Protected access to AAC and communication technology, backed by rigorous comparative research

• Housing, direct support workforce capacity, respite, and caregiver succession planning

• A recognition that autism has multiple biological subtypes, so treatment can be matched to the biology actually driving a person’s presentation

• Autism.gov, a proposed federal front door and public dashboard to track real progress

• Above all, timely action. Preserve these priorities in the final plan and move forward without further avoidable delay

You can review the full Working Draft on the IACC website: https://iacc.hhs.gov/meetings/iacc-meetings/2026/full-committee-meeting/july/

Twenty years of public comment got us to this draft. Do not let seven organizations, however large their names, talk the federal government into burying it in process for another year. Our families do not have another year to give.

Closing Thoughts

For far too long, families have waited while autism rates climbed, children regressed, caregivers burned out, and individuals with profound autism were left without the support they deserve. We cannot afford to lose more time.

This Working Draft represents an opportunity to change the direction of federal autism policy by putting the needs of those most affected at the center of the conversation. It is not perfect, and that is precisely why your voice matters. This is your opportunity to help shape the final Strategic Plan.

I respectfully ask you not to let well-funded organizations speak for our entire community. Read the Working Draft for yourself. Decide which priorities resonate with your family’s experience and submit your own comments. Every thoughtful voice helps ensure that the final plan reflects the realities of those living with autism every day.

History has shown us what happens when the same conversations are repeated without meaningful action. It is time to move beyond endless debate and toward real solutions.

Our children cannot wait. Adults with autism cannot wait. Families cannot wait.

Now is the time to stand together, speak up, and help build a future where autism research, services, and federal policy reflect the needs of the entire community—not just the loudest voices.

Your comment matters. Your experience matters. And together, we can help shape the future of autism in America.

With Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder & President, Autism Health Inc.
Public Member, Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
Bestselling Author, Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Her Son with Autism

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.iacc.hhs.gov

In 2024, the United States spent approximately $5.3 trillion on healthcare, about $15,474 for every person in the country. Yet chronic illness continues to rise, millions of Americans struggle to access consistent primary care, and families are increasingly questioning whether our healthcare system is truly designed to keep people healthy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 90 percent of the nation’s annual healthcare expenditures are associated with people living with chronic and mental health conditions. Source

That should force us to ask an uncomfortable question: is our healthcare system built to prevent disease, or to manage people after they become sick?

This is not an attack on doctors, nurses, hospitals, or the dedicated professionals working within the system. Most healthcare providers enter medicine because they genuinely want to help people. The problem is larger than any individual provider. It is a system of reimbursement, incentives, medical education, insurance policy, time constraints, and institutional priorities that often makes it easier to pay for a prescription, procedure, or hospitalization than for the sustained work required to prevent disease.

We Spend More But Are We Healthier?

The United States spends more on healthcare than any other nation, both per person and as a share of its economy. Hospital spending reached $1.6 trillion in 2024. Physician and clinical services accounted for more than $1.1 trillion, while retail prescription drug spending reached approximately $467 billion. Source

These services are often necessary and lifesaving. We need hospitals, medications, surgeries, specialists, and emergency care. But spending more money treating illness does not necessarily mean we are creating better health.

In 2023, approximately 194 million American adults reported having at least one chronic health condition. More than half reported living with two or more. Chronic illness is not limited to older Americans; the prevalence among young adults rose significantly between 2013 and 2023. Source

We are becoming better at managing disease once it appears but we are not doing enough to ask why so many people are becoming sick in the first place.

The System Responds After the Fire Starts

Imagine a house repeatedly catching fire. Each time, firefighters arrive with better equipment and new technology that helps contain the damage. All of that is valuable. But eventually, someone must ask why the house keeps catching fire. Is the wiring defective? Is there a gas leak? Is a preventable hazard being ignored?

Our healthcare system often works the same way. It responds once blood sugar is elevated, blood pressure is uncontrolled, autoimmune symptoms have progressed, or heart disease has advanced. The patient then receives medications, referrals, imaging, and ongoing monitoring. What’s often missing is the time, support, and reimbursement needed to address what contributed to the illness long before it became a diagnosis, factors like:

• Poor nutrition and limited access to nutritious food

• Sedentary lifestyles and chronic stress

• Inadequate sleep

• Environmental and occupational exposures

• Social isolation and substance use

• Metabolic dysfunction

• Lack of consistent primary care and delayed diagnosis

• Poverty, unstable housing, and genetic vulnerability

Not every disease can be prevented. Genetics, infections, aging, and injuries all matter, and prevention should never become a way to blame patients for becoming ill. But we cannot ignore that many chronic conditions can be prevented, delayed, or better managed when people receive meaningful support before a crisis develops.

Why Prevention Struggles to Compete

The imbalance begins with how healthcare is financed. Under traditional fee-for-service payment, providers are generally paid for appointments, tests, procedures, and treatments. The more services delivered, the more revenue the system generates.

Preventing a hospitalization, reducing a patient’s exposure to harmful substances, or spending an hour discussing nutrition and lifestyle rarely generates comparable reimbursement. A physician may know a patient needs real support with diet, stress, sleep, or environmental health, but a short appointment may leave time only to review symptoms, order tests, renew prescriptions, and move to the next patient. This is not necessarily because the doctor doesn’t care. The system often doesn’t give the doctor enough time.

Primary Care Is the Foundation and We Underinvest In It

Primary care is where prevention should begin. A strong primary-care relationship creates opportunities to catch risks early, monitor changes over time, coordinate specialists, and help patients make informed decisions before conditions become emergencies.

Yet the United States dedicates a small share of its healthcare spending to primary care. The Commonwealth Fund found the U.S. spent approximately 4.7% of total healthcare expenditures on primary care in 2021, compared with an average of roughly 14% among other high-income countries. Source

At the same time, HRSA’s National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects a national shortage of more than 70,000 primary-care physicians by 2038. We cannot claim to prioritize prevention while weakening the part of medicine most responsible for providing it. Source

Insurance Often Covers the Consequence, Not the Cause

Many patients encounter a frustrating contradiction. Insurance may cover medications for diabetes but offer limited access to intensive nutrition counseling. It may pay for surgery after years of disease progression but provide little support for the interventions that could have reduced the risk of reaching that point. It may reimburse a screening but not the ongoing coaching needed to act on the results, or a medical appointment but not the transportation, childcare, or work-schedule barriers that keep a patient from following the treatment plan.

True prevention requires more than telling people to eat better, move more, and sleep well. People need access, education, time, affordable options, and practical support.

The Business of Chronic Disease

We must also acknowledge the economic reality surrounding chronic illness. Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, device manufacturers, and food companies all operate within an enormous healthcare economy. That does not mean every company is intentionally trying to keep people sick, but financial incentives shape institutional behavior. When billions of dollars flow through ongoing disease management while prevention remains fragmented and underfunded, the system will naturally build more infrastructure around treatment than around eliminating the conditions that create demand for it.

A healthcare system should be rewarded financially when patients become healthier, not only when more services are delivered.

Prevention Is More Than a Checklist

Public-health discussions sometimes define prevention too narrowly, as if it begins and ends with screenings, exams, and immunization schedules. Real prevention has to ask harder questions. What is in our food? What chemicals are children and pregnant women routinely exposed to? Are endocrine-disrupting substances adequately studied and regulated? Are communities exposed to contaminated air, water, or soil? Why are metabolic disorders appearing at younger ages? And when it comes to vaccines specifically, are parents given full, transparent safety data and genuine informed consent, or are they handed a schedule and told not to ask questions? Independent scientists should have real access to vaccine safety data, not just the institutions that develop and promote them.

A serious prevention strategy cannot focus only on individual behavior while ignoring the commercial, environmental, occupational, and social forces that shape health. Personal responsibility matters. So does institutional responsibility, and that includes transparency about what we’re exposing our children to and why.

What This Means for Autism Families

Families impacted by autism often understand the limits of a symptom-management model better than most. Parents move from one specialist to another while gastrointestinal problems, severe sleep disturbances, seizures, nutritional deficiencies, chronic pain, pre-genetics, and immune dysfunction remain fragmented across providers. Too often, behaviors are treated as simply “part of autism” without investigating whether the individual is in pain, unable to sleep, or reacting to something treatable.

Individuals with autism deserve the same comprehensive medical investigation and preventive care as everyone else. A diagnosis should not be a reason to stop asking questions. We need a system that looks at the whole person, listens to caregivers, and identifies co-occurring conditions early.

What Would a Prevention-Focused System Look Like?

Transforming healthcare will require more than encouraging people to make better choices. The incentives themselves must change.

1. Reward outcomes, not volume. Payment models should reward early intervention, better disease control, and fewer preventable hospitalizations, giving providers enough time to actually understand their patients. Value-based care must be designed carefully so patients are never denied necessary treatment to cut costs, but it can help move the system away from paying primarily for volume.

2. Rebuild primary care. This means better reimbursement, less administrative burden, a larger workforce, and integrating nutrition, behavioral health, and care coordination into routine practice.

3. Cover evidence-based lifestyle and nutrition services. Insurance should meaningfully cover qualified nutrition counseling, diabetes-prevention programs, sleep support, and other evidence-based approaches, based on proof of benefit rather than on whether the intervention involves a drug or procedure.

4. Invest in environmental-health research. We need better research into cumulative exposures, chemical mixtures, vulnerable developmental windows, and occupational and environmental risks, with data that’s transparent and accessible to independent researchers.

5. Remove financial barriers to early care. High deductibles, narrow provider networks, and long waiting lists can turn manageable problems into medical crises.

6. Support families and caregivers. Respite care, caregiver training, and flexible employment policies improve outcomes for entire families, not just patients.

7. Measure health, not just healthcare activity. Success shouldn’t be counted in appointments, prescriptions, or filled hospital beds. It should be measured in better metabolic health, fewer preventable complications, better sleep, less pain, and longer, healthier lives.

Signs of Change

There are encouraging signs that policymakers are beginning to recognize the problem. CMS recently launched the ACCESS model, a 10-year, voluntary payment model that ties reimbursement to measurable outcomes for common chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic pain, and depression, rather than to the volume of services delivered. The broader MAHA movement has also forced a long-overdue national conversation about food, metabolic health, environmental exposures, and prevention. Source

But slogans are not enough. We must evaluate whether new programs produce measurable improvements, remain accessible to ordinary families, and genuinely shift resources upstream. A prevention initiative should not become another layer of bureaucracy. It should result in healthier people.

The Question We Must Answer

America has some of the most advanced medical technology in the world. We can perform extraordinary surgeries, develop lifesaving medications, and respond to complex emergencies. We should be proud of that. But a truly successful healthcare system must do more than rescue people after they become seriously ill. It must investigate root causes without abandoning effective treatment. It must recognize that nutrition, environment, behavior, genetics, community, and medical care all shape health. And it must reward doctors for helping patients improve, not simply for delivering more billable services.

The question is not whether America should choose treatment or prevention. We need both. The real question is whether we are willing to build a system in which prevention receives the same urgency, funding, and institutional support that we give to disease management.

Because the most expensive healthcare system in the world should also be producing one of the healthiest populations. Right now, it is not.

From One Warrior Parent to Another

I entered this conversation as a mother searching for answers for her child. That journey taught me that health is rarely as simple as treating one symptom or writing one prescription. Families need physicians who listen, researchers who ask difficult questions, and a healthcare system that values prevention as much as intervention.

We should never dismiss lifesaving medicine or shame anyone for needing treatment. But we should also refuse to accept a future in which chronic disease is considered inevitable and lifelong management is our only answer.

Our children deserve better. Our families deserve better. And our healthcare professionals deserve a system that gives them the time and tools to help people become truly healthier.

Until next time,

With gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder & President, Autism Health Inc.
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Her Son with Autism
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.WarriorMom.com | www.AutismHealth.com | www.PurHealth.com

Join Us This Saturday for a Free Webinar on The Gut Microbiome and Immune Health with Dr. Basima Williams

This ties directly into the prevention conversation: our next Monthly Webinar features Dr. Basima Williams on Understanding the Impact of the Gut Microbiome on the Immune System, this Saturday, July 25th at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST. Dr. Williams will break down how gut health shapes immune function and why it matters so much for our families. It’s free to attend, but you must register in advance.
Register HERE to save your spot.

I have told my story more times than I can count. My son was developing exactly the way he was supposed to. He was babbling, pointing, making eye contact, doing all the things a toddler does. And then he wasn’t. Something happened, and the child we knew started disappearing in front of our eyes. Anyone who has lived this knows exactly what I mean, and anyone who hasn’t will probably struggle to understand how a parent can watch their own child regress and still be told, years later, that there was never really a meaningful difference between what happened to Noah and a child who showed signs of autism from birth.

But there is a difference. And for most of the last century, the medical profession knew it.

A century of careful observation, thrown away in one manual

In 1908, a Viennese educator named Theodor Heller documented six children at his institute for children with disabilities in Vienna. These children developed normally for three or four years and then suffered a severe, sudden collapse. He called it dementia infantilis. Decades later, this pattern got its own formal name: Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, sometimes called Heller’s Syndrome. It described children who hit their milestones, then lost them. Speech, social connection, bowel and bladder control, all of it could vanish within months, sometimes within weeks.

For decades, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder sat alongside classic autism as its own distinct category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Clinicians could look at a child’s history and say, this child regressed. That mattered. It mattered for research. It mattered for treatment. Most of all, it mattered for figuring out what actually happened to that child’s body and brain.

Then in 2013, the DSM-5 folded Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, along with Asperger’s Syndrome and several other categories, into one umbrella diagnosis: Autism Spectrum Disorder. A single label now covers a child who was never quite on track from infancy and a child who was completely on track until regression hit. The distinction that Heller spent his career documenting was simply absorbed and, in practice, buried. Source

The number no one talks about

Here is what should stop every parent and every clinician in their tracks. A 2013 meta-analysis by Barger and colleagues looked across the research and found that at least 30% of children with autism experience this kind of regression, most commonly losing speech and language skills they had already gained. Three in ten. That is not a footnote. That is not a rare curiosity for medical historians. That is a massive share of the autism population whose defining feature, at least in some cases the most useful diagnostic clue available, has been folded into a spectrum so broad it now stretches from profound, life-altering disability to social awkwardness in adults with full independence. Source

Researchers at Yale’s Child Study Center have pushed back on this merger for exactly this reason. They have argued that children with Childhood Disintegrative Disorder undergo severe, rapid regressions that deserve to be studied as their own category, not dissolved into a spectrum where the pattern gets lost in the noise. Source

I understand why some in the psychology profession wanted a cleaner, simpler system. But simpler is not the same as true. When you erase the distinction between regression and no regression, you erase the question that matters most: what caused the collapse? A child who was always going to have autism from birth is a very different research subject than a child who was developing typically and then lost that development after some kind of biological insult. Lumping them together does not just confuse the data. It removes the incentive to even ask what happened.

Why this is not just academic

I did not need a diagnostic manual to tell me my son regressed. I watched it happen. Any parent who has lived through this does not need convincing. What we needed, and what families still need today, is a medical system willing to take that history seriously instead of filing it under a label so broad it stops meaning anything specific.

When regression gets buried inside a spectrum, so does the urgency to investigate immune dysfunction, gut health, metabolic collapse, and environmental triggers that so many of our kids show clear signs of. The biological signals were blindingly obvious to Heller in 1908, working with six children and no modern lab tests. They are blindingly obvious to parents today, watching eczema, constipation, insomnia, and loss of speech pile up in their own children. What has changed is not the biology. What has changed is the willingness of the profession to name it.

We are not asking for a return to stigma or outdated labels. We are asking for the same thing Heller was after: honest documentation of what actually happened to a child, so we have a fighting chance of understanding why.

30% of our children did not start out this way. They got here. That distinction deserves its own name again, not a quiet burial inside a category too big to mean anything.

With Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder & President, Autism Health Inc.
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Her Son with Autism
Member, Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.AHSconference.com

In a 7 to 2 decision in Monsanto v. Durnell, the Court ruled that federal pesticide law preempts state failure-to-warn lawsuits. In plain English: because the Environmental Protection Agency approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning, states can no longer hold Monsanto liable for failing to warn the public that their product might cause cancer. The ruling is expected to wipe out thousands of pending claims from people who used Roundup and developed cancer, most often non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Read that again. Real people, with real cancer, who convinced real juries. And the highest court in the country just told them the courthouse door is closed.

I want to explain why this should alarm every American, regardless of politics. Because this is not really a story about weed killer. It is a story about a pattern, and about who our government chooses to protect when profits and people collide.

What the Court Actually Did

The case was brought by John Durnell, a Missouri man who used Roundup for about two decades and developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2023, a jury agreed that Monsanto had failed to warn him of the danger and awarded him more than a million dollars. A state appeals court upheld that verdict.

Then the Supreme Court threw it out. Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh reasoned that since the EPA had approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning, a state jury could not require Monsanto to add one. Federal approval, in effect, became a shield against accountability.

The dissent was blistering. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, an unusual pairing that tells you something, wrote that the majority misread the law and left Durnell “without a remedy for the significant harms he has suffered.” Two justices from opposite ends of the bench looked at the same ruling and saw the same injustice.

This did not happen in a vacuum. The Trump administration’s Justice Department sided with Monsanto before the Court. And in February 2026, President Trump signed an executive order declaring glyphosate “crucial to the national security and defense” of the country. When the government you fund lines up alongside the corporation instead of the cancer patients, you are entitled to ask whose side it is on. In my view, the answer is obvious, and it is not ours.

We Have Seen This Movie Before: The 1986 Vaccine Act

If this feels familiar, it should. We have watched the government hand a powerful industry immunity before.

In 1986, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. At the time, vaccine manufacturers were facing a wave of injury lawsuits and warned they might exit the market. So the government solved the industry’s problem by taking away yours. Under that law, if you or your child is injured or dies from a vaccine, you generally cannot sue the manufacturer. You must instead petition a federal program, and any compensation comes out of a fund, which is to say, out of the public’s pocket, not the company’s.

Think about what that structure actually does. It removes the single greatest incentive a company has to make a product safer: the fear of being held accountable when it isn’t. When you cannot be sued for harm, harm becomes a line item, not a liability.

Monsanto v. Durnell now extends that same logic to the chemical industry. A federal agency blesses a label, and that blessing becomes a wall between injured people and the company that injured them. Different industry, same playbook: privatize the profit, socialize the harm, and leave ordinary families holding the bag.

This is the pattern. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

The Chemicals We’re Told Not to Worry About

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is the most widely used herbicide on earth. It is sprayed on farms, parks, schoolyards, golf courses, and backyards. It is in our soil, our water, our air, our clothing, and our food. A CDC-linked analysis of urine samples found glyphosate in more than 80% of Americans tested. This is not a fringe exposure. It is nearly universal.

And the science that raises alarms is not coming from nowhere. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” In 2019, researchers at the University of Washington concluded that high exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides was associated with a 41% increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Additional peer-reviewed work has documented links to oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, cancer, and effects on the gut microbiome.

Glyphosate is far from the only chemical worth worrying about. Consider a short and very incomplete list of pesticides and herbicides and the health concerns researchers have raised about them:

• Glyphosate (Roundup): Associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and many other cancers; classified as a probable human carcinogen by the WHO’s cancer agency; linked to oxidative stress and endocrine disruption.

• Atrazine: One of the most common weed killers in the United States, banned in the European Union. A known endocrine disruptor associated with hormonal disruption and reproductive and developmental concerns, and a frequent contaminant of drinking water.

• Chlorpyrifos: An organophosphate insecticide linked in research to neurodevelopmental harm in children, including effects on brain development and IQ. Its food-use tolerances have been the subject of years of legal and regulatory fighting.

• Paraquat: A highly toxic herbicide, banned in dozens of countries, associated in research with a significantly increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. It is so acutely lethal that a small ingested amount can kill.

• 2,4-D: One of the oldest synthetic herbicides and a component of the historical defoliant Agent Orange. Classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans and associated with hormonal and reproductive concerns.

• Neonicotinoids: A class of insecticides linked to the collapse of pollinator populations, with emerging research questions about developmental and neurological effects in humans.

• Organophosphate insecticides (as a class): Developed from the same chemistry as nerve agents, associated with acute poisoning and, in chronic low-dose exposure, with neurological and developmental harm.

Every one of these is legal. Many are sprayed on the food supply right now. And the ruling in Durnell makes it dramatically harder to hold the companies that make them accountable when they cause harm, so long as a federal agency signed off on the label.

The Question We’re Not Supposed to Ask

Here is the uncomfortable question at the center of all of this. Why does our government keep granting immunity to billion-dollar companies whose products are credibly linked to injury, illness, and death?

Bayer, which owns Monsanto, generates enormous annual revenue and has already paid out roughly ten billion dollars to settle Roundup cancer claims, an extraordinary sum that only makes sense if juries kept concluding the company was responsible. The company knew it had a liability problem. Rather than warn people, it fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the right not to, and won.

The agencies that are supposed to protect us, the EPA and the FDA among them, too often behave as though their real client is the industry they regulate, not the public they serve. I do not say that lightly. But when the pattern repeats this cleanly, across vaccines and now chemicals, decade after decade, the most charitable explanation gets harder and harder to sustain. It increasingly looks less like an agency protecting health and more like an agency protecting profit. And it increasingly looks like an administration that has taken the industry’s side.

Attorney Aaron Siri, who has spent years litigating these exact fights over corporate immunity and injury, says it as plainly as anyone. I am including his video here because he cuts straight to the heart of it.

Safer Alternatives Exist, and It’s Time We Used Them

Here is what the chemical industry would rather we forget: glyphosate is not the only way to control weeds and pests, and it never was. Effective, lower-toxicity and nontoxic alternatives already exist and are being used by farmers, gardeners, and land managers who refuse to accept poison as the price of a healthy yard or a productive field. On the natural end, products built from horticultural vinegar (acetic acid), citric acid, neem oil, clove and other essential oils, corn gluten meal, and iron-based herbicides can knock down weeds without the cancer questions that follow glyphosate everywhere it goes. Beyond any single bottle, proven practices do much of the work that chemicals claim to: mulching, crop rotation, cover cropping, flame and steam weeding, hand cultivation, and integrated pest management, which uses beneficial insects and careful timing to control pests with minimal chemical input. None of these is a magic bullet, and some take more effort than spraying and walking away. But that is exactly the point. We have been sold the idea that convenience for the manufacturer is the same as necessity for the rest of us, and it simply is not true. When safer options are sitting right in front of us, the continued blanket reliance on glyphosate starts to look less like science and more like habit, marketing, and profit.

Why This Is Personal for Me

I do not write about this as a detached observer. I write about it as a mother.

I watched my son Noah regress into autism. After a routine pediatrician visit where he received his MMRV vaccines, then he became incredibly sick. He contracted measles from the vaccine. And then, slowly, I watched my little boy disappear. He lost his speech. He lost his ability to communicate. He lost motor skills and cognitive function that he had already gained. In their place came a long list of health issues and autoimmune disorders that we have spent years working to heal.

No mother should have to watch that and then be told there is no one to hold accountable. But that is exactly the world these decisions build. A world where products go to market, families absorb the damage, and the law is arranged so the companies never have to answer for it.

That is why I will not stop talking about this. Not about vaccines, not about glyphosate, not about any product that harms people while the makers are shielded from consequence. The Durnell ruling did not create this pattern. It just extended it. And the more of us who refuse to look away, the harder it becomes to keep pretending this is normal.

We are not asking for anything radical. We are asking to be warned. We are asking for the right to hold the powerful accountable when they cause harm. And we are asking a simple question that our government seems determined not to answer: if these products are as safe as we are told, why does the industry need so badly to be protected from us?

In Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
President & Founder of Autism Health Inc.
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom

www.WarriorMom.com | www.AutismHealth.com | www.AHSconference.com

Disclaimer: This article reflects my personal views, opinions, and firsthand experience. It is provided for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as medical, legal, or professional advice. Statements characterizing the motives of government agencies, corporations, or public officials are expressions of opinion. Scientific and regulatory bodies disagree about the health effects of glyphosate and other substances discussed here; the EPA has stated it does not consider glyphosate likely to cause cancer, while the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as probably carcinogenic, and readers are encouraged to review the linked sources and reach their own conclusions. Nothing here should be used to make decisions about your health or medical care, or your family’s, without consulting a qualified licensed professional. My account of my son’s health is my own personal experience and is not a claim about what will happen to anyone else.

Sources and further reading:

• Supreme Court filing, Monsanto v. Durnell (No. 24-1068): https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-1068/399785/20260302183259184_24-1068%20Monsanto%20tsac.pdf

• Glyphosate health research: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9101768/

• Glyphosate health research: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11354939/

• University of Washington study on glyphosate and cancer risk: https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/02/13/uw-study-exposure-to-chemical-in-roundup-increases-risk-for-cancer/

To commemorate this historic occasion, Autism Health Inc. is offering our biggest promotion of the year for the 2027 Autism Health Summit! Throughout the month of July only, receive 50% OFF your Autism Health Summit admission with promo code AHS50. The Summit will be held April 29 through May 1, 2027, at the beautiful Legacy Center Resort & Spa in San Diego, California, and will once again bring together leading physicians, researchers, practitioners, advocates, and families for three inspiring days of education, collaboration, and community. This special offer ends July 31st and will not be offered again.

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From our family to yours, we wish you a safe, joyful, and meaningful Independence Day. Thank you for being part of the Autism Health community and for helping us continue to educate, empower, and serve families around the world.

www.AutismHealth.com | www.AHSconference.com | www.WarriorMom.com

That principle is the foundation of how science is supposed to function. A finding becomes credible not because an authority announces it, but because independent researchers can examine the same data, run their own analyses, and either confirm the result or raise legitimate questions. Verification is not an attack on science. It is science.

So it is worth asking a straightforward question. When it comes to vaccine safety, can independent scientists actually access the data they would need to verify what we are told?

In too many cases, the honest answer is no. And that gap, more than any single study, is what quietly erodes public confidence.

The Datalink Most People Have Never Heard Of

One of the most important resources in this conversation is the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a group of integrated healthcare organizations. It links vaccination records with medical outcomes for millions of people, which makes it one of the largest and most valuable vaccine safety databases in the country.

In principle, this is exactly the kind of resource that should be driving open, rigorous safety science. In practice, access is tightly restricted. Independent researchers who want to examine the raw data face a process that is, by most accounts, difficult to navigate, heavily gatekept, and largely closed to anyone outside an approved circle. Proposals can be screened. Access can be mediated. The people most motivated to ask hard, uncomfortable questions are often the least likely to get in the door.

You do not have to assume bad faith on anyone’s part to recognize the problem. When the body that promotes a public health intervention is also the body that controls who may independently study its safety, the structure itself invites doubt, regardless of what the data actually show.

If you believe transparency strengthens science rather than threatening it, share this with someone who needs to hear it. The conversation only moves forward in the open.

Read more

My husband, Steve Slepcevic, is the CEO and Founder of Strategic Response Partners. I have watched him do this work for years, and I can tell you without hesitation that he is one of the most capable and committed people I know when it comes to showing up in the worst moments, in the hardest places, for people who have nowhere else to turn. Right now, that work is needed more than ever.

On June 24, two powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela less than a minute apart, near the coast west of Caracas. Entire apartment buildings came down. Hospitals were damaged. Families are still waiting, right now, for word about loved ones trapped beneath the rubble. The death toll has climbed into the hundreds and is expected to keep rising, with thousands injured and many more displaced and sleeping in the streets, afraid to go back inside.

This is exactly the kind of moment Strategic Response Partners was built for.

Donate Here

What SRP is Doing on the Ground In Venezuela

Strategic Response Partners is deploying Urban Search and Rescue paramedic teams to assist with critical lifesaving operations. Our people are fully equipped, highly trained, certified, and actively responding. The work includes:

• Urban Search and Rescue

• Emergency Medical Assistance

• Emergency Shelter and Essential Supplies

• Heavy Equipment and Logistics Support

• Humanitarian Relief for Affected Families

These are not abstract categories. They are the difference between a family reunited and a family left waiting. They are clean water for people who have lost everything, medical care for the injured, and a trained rescuer reaching someone before time runs out.

Our teams are already in motion. But the need is growing faster than the resources to meet it, and that is where you come in.

Why Your Support Matters Right Now

In a disaster of this scale, the first hours and days are everything. Survival often comes down to how quickly trained rescuers and medical personnel can reach the people who are trapped, injured, or stranded. Every team we can deploy, every load of supplies we can move, expands how many lives we can reach while it still matters.

Every donation directly funds the deployment of trained rescue personnel, specialized equipment, medical supplies, food, clean water, fuel, transportation, emergency shelter, and other lifesaving resources for the people impacted by this disaster. There is no part of this that is theoretical. It all goes to the front lines.

This is where ordinary people get the chance to do something extraordinary. Your generosity becomes hope for a family waiting to be rescued, comfort for those who have lost everything, and strength for the first responders working around the clock to bring people home. Together, we can bring real help to families facing unimaginable loss of life and property.

How to Help

Please consider supporting this mission through our GiveSendGo campaign. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps save lives, restore hope, and reminds people who are suffering that they have not been forgotten.

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If you are not able to give, you can still help by sharing this with people in your life who can. In moments like this, awareness moves resources, and resources save lives.

Thank you for standing with us and for standing with the people of Venezuela when they need us most. I am proud of the work Steve and his team are doing and I am grateful for every person willing to be part of it.

With Sincere Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder & President of Autism Health Inc. & Autism Health Summit
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.WarriorMom.com | www.SRP24.com | www.AutismHealth.com

“We make too much to qualify for assistance, but not enough to afford what our child needs.”

These are the forgotten families.

They are the middle-class families who work hard, pay taxes, carry health insurance, and do everything society asks of them. Yet when they seek support for their child, they often discover they fall into a gap that few policymakers acknowledge and even fewer understand.

They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), waivers, or other public assistance programs. At the same time, they do not earn enough to absorb the enormous costs associated with raising a child with significant medical, behavioral, developmental, or educational needs.

The result is a financial burden that can overwhelm even the most responsible families.

The Gap Nobody Names

When most people picture a family raising a child with autism, they imagine one of two stories: a family poor enough to qualify for public assistance, or a family wealthy enough that cost simply isn’t the central problem. Both stories are real. But there is a third story, and it may be the most common one of all and the least discussed.

It’s the story of the family that earns too much to qualify for Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid waivers, or many state-funded services, but nowhere near enough to absorb the staggering, ongoing costs of raising a child with significant needs.

These families fall into what I call the service gap. They are told, in effect: You make too much to get assistance, and not enough to make it on your own. So Good luck.

What “Too Much to Qualify” Actually Looks Like

The eligibility thresholds for most assistance programs were built around a model of poverty, not a model of disability. They ask one question, “How much do you earn?”and almost never the question that matters most for these families: how much does your child’s disability cost you?

And the costs are extraordinary. Depending on a child’s needs, families face annual bills for the following:

• Behavioral, speech, occupational, and physical therapies

• Specialized medical and biomedical care, often out of network or out of pocket

• Private or specialized education when public placements fall short

• Caregiving and respite care

• Transportation to appointments that can be hours away

• Adaptive equipment and assistive technology

• Home modifications for safety and accessibility

Add it up and you are easily looking at tens of thousands of dollars a year, sometimes far more, on top of an ordinary household budget. A family earning a comfortable income on paper can be running a deficit every single month in reality.

The Hidden Cost: A Parent Leaves the Workforce

There is a second blow that rarely shows up in eligibility formulas. In a huge number of these families, one parent cuts their hours dramatically or leaves work entirely to manage care, coordinate services, attend appointments, and simply keep a child safe.

That decision is often not a choice so much as a necessity. But the financial consequences are brutal and compounding. The family loses an entire income at the exact moment their expenses spike. They lose career momentum, retirement contributions, and earning potential that may never be recovered. And here is the cruel irony: the household income that disqualified them from assistance was often only sustainable because both parents worked, the very thing the disability made impossible.

So eligibility systems measure a family at their highest earning capacity and then leave them stranded the moment that capacity collapses.

Why This Is Everyone’s Issue

I want to be clear about something. This is not a left issue or a right issue. It is not a red-state or blue-state issue. Families across every political and philosophical viewpoint are living this reality, and almost none of them feel seen by the current system.

A topic that affects this many families, this severely, and gets discussed this little is exactly the kind of thing our policymakers are supposed to wrestle with. Yet it almost never comes up. The families living in this gap are largely invisible in the conversations that decide how support gets allocated, and that silence has a cost. You cannot fix a problem the system refuses to name.

The Questions We Should Be Asking

If we are serious about supporting these families, there are a handful of questions worth putting squarely on the table:

1. Income eligibility thresholds. Do they reflect the true cost of disability-related care, or do they simply measure earnings and ignore the extraordinary expenses that come with autism?

2. The economic impact of caregiving. What does it really do to a family’s income, employment, and long-term financial stability when a parent must leave the workforce to provide care?

3. Policy options for families who fall through the cracks. What can be done to improve access to services for families who don’t qualify for traditional assistance but cannot afford care on their own?

4. Reducing barriers to medically necessary care. How do we lower the financial walls standing between families and the treatments, therapies, respite care, and supports that genuinely improve quality of life and long-term outcomes?

A Path Forward: How We Actually Close the Gap

Naming a problem isn’t enough. So here is what a real solution could look like. None of these ideas requires us to dismantle existing programs. They extend a hand to the families those programs were never built to reach.

1. Measure disability cost, not just income. The single most important change is also the most basic: eligibility should account for documented, disability-related out-of-pocket expenses. A family earning $120,000 who spends $40,000 a year on their child’s care does not have $120,000 of capacity. They have $80,000. A “disability cost offset” applied to income calculations would let eligibility reflect a family’s actual financial reality. This is how we stop punishing families for earning the very income they’re spending on their child.

2. Create a sliding-scale, middle-income support tier. Assistance shouldn’t be all-or-nothing. We need a tier of partial support, copays, cost-sharing, or capped reimbursement, that phases out gradually as income rises rather than slamming shut at an arbitrary cliff. The current system creates a benefits cliff so steep that a small raise can cost a family thousands in lost services. Smooth that cliff into a ramp.

3. Make medically necessary therapies reimbursable through a refundable tax credit. A robust, refundable federal tax credit for documented autism- and disability-related expenses would put money back into the hands of families who are paying out of pocket right now. Refundable is the key word. It has to reach families who don’t have a large tax liability, not just those who do.

4. Fund respite and caregiver support directly. Respite care is not a luxury. It is what keeps a parent employed, a marriage intact, and a caregiver healthy enough to keep going. Direct respite funding for middle-income families is one of the highest-return investments we can make, because it protects the unpaid caregiver the entire system silently depends on.

5. Protect the caregiving parent’s long-term security. We should explore caregiver credits toward Social Security and retirement for parents who leave the workforce to provide full-time care. A parent who spends a decade caring for a child with significant needs should not be financially destitute in retirement as a reward.

6. Expand ABLE accounts and savings tools. Strengthening tax-advantaged savings vehicles by raising contribution limits, broadening eligibility, and improving awareness gives middle-income families a way to plan for lifelong costs without being penalized for trying to save.

The common thread is simple: stop treating income as a proxy for need. A family’s earnings tell you almost nothing about what’s left after the cost of their child’s disability is paid. Until our policies grasp that, we will keep telling hardworking families they earn too much to deserve help, right up until the moment they can’t afford to keep going.

These Families Deserve Better

No family should be pushed into financial ruin simply because they earn a little too much to qualify for help while facing extraordinary, unavoidable disability-related costs. That isn’t a fringe scenario. It is the lived reality of millions of middle-class families raising children with autism and related developmental disabilities.

They have done everything right. They work. They advocate. They sacrifice. And the system has quietly decided they’re on their own.

We can do better than that. We have to. And I intend to keep fighting until the families who’ve been forgotten are finally seen.

If this resonates with your family, or you know someone living in this gap, share it. The first step to closing a gap nobody talks about is talking about it.

A Message from One Warrior Parent to Another

I understand this struggle because I have lived it.

When my son Noah regressed into autism, our family entered a world we were completely unprepared for. Like so many parents, we spent years searching for answers, pursuing therapies, traveling for treatments, consulting specialists, and doing everything we could to help our child heal and thrive. Every decision carried emotional weight, but many also carried a financial cost.

What I learned along the way is that families raising children with autism are some of the strongest, most resilient people I have ever met. They wake up every day and do whatever it takes for their children, often sacrificing their own careers, finances, health, and dreams in the process.

Yet too many of these families feel invisible.

They are not asking for special treatment. They are not asking for handouts. They are simply asking for a system that recognizes the extraordinary challenges they face and provides support that reflects reality.

No parent should have to choose between paying the mortgage and paying for therapy. No family should have to deplete their retirement savings to access medically necessary care. And no child should lose opportunities because their parents fall just above an arbitrary income threshold.

As we continue the national conversation about autism, I hope we can begin talking not only about services and outcomes, but also about the families carrying the weight of these challenges every single day.

If this story reflects your experience, I encourage you to share it. The more voices we bring to this conversation, the harder it becomes to ignore.

The forgotten families should be forgotten no longer.

With Sincere Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder & President of Autism Health
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism
Member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)

www.WarriorMom.com | www.AutismHealth.com | www.AHSconference.com

I’m not writing this to win an argument with a reporter. I’m writing it because the story they told about families like mine is inaccurate, and because the parents they painted as gullible victims deserve to have their side told by someone who has actually lived it.

So let me set the record straight.

Who I am, and why this is personal

My name is Tracy Slepcevic. I’m the founder and president of Autism Health Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. I’m a U.S. Air Force veteran, a certified integrative health practitioner, the bestselling author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Her Son with Autism, and a member of the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC).

But long before any of those titles, I was just a mother watching her son disappear.

When my son Noah was 18 months old, he was a typical, thriving toddler. He had met every developmental milestone. He babbled, he signed, he made eye contact, he moved through the world like any healthy child his age.

Then he received his MMRV vaccines.

Within days, Noah broke out in a full-body rash — which turned out to be measles — and ran a high-grade fever for about a week. Our pediatrician told us this was all normal but it was not normal for my son. Shortly after, Noah began to regress. He lost his speech, his baby signs, cognition, and he lost motor skills he had already mastered. He could no longer jump or climb, and his balance was gone. As he grew, there was a long list of things other kids did that Noah could not: ride a bike, cross the monkey bars, tie his shoes, climb a rock wall, and so much more.

I watched my healthy son slip into a state of autism after a routine well-baby visit. That is my account, as his mother, of what I personally experienced. No headline, no fact-check, and no reporter is going to talk me out of what I saw with my own eyes.

A note on why my side wasn’t in their story: if I trusted that the reporter from The Guardian wouldn’t twist my words to fit his agenda, I would have made a comment. But I don’t trust many reporters based on experience. So I chose to keep my comments to myself — because in the end, they write what they want to write to fill their own agenda. This article is me telling my story on my own terms, where it can’t be edited down to fit someone else’s narrative.

What we actually did — and what we did not do

The Guardian’s framing is that desperate parents are being financially exploited and that we are “experimenting” on our children. I am going to be very clear about how false that is, because it insults every parent who has ever fought for a sick child.

In 2012, I took Noah to Ukraine for stem cell therapy under the Bradstreet protocol. Before we ever got on that plane, I spent two years researching stem cell therapy. Two years. I did not gamble with my child’s life. I studied, I asked questions, I weighed the risks, and only then did we move forward.

Yes, it was expensive. And I would pay it again ten times over.

Within 30 days of stem cell therapy, Noah regained the motor skills he had lost — and gained ones he’d never had. He graduated from occupational therapy. He never lost those gains. I attribute that recovery to the stem cell therapy. That is not a hope or a sales pitch; it is what happened to my son, and I will say so plainly.

Here is a story I will never forget. When we returned from Ukraine, I took Noah to the Renaissance Fair. As we were walking through the grounds, he spotted a towering rock wall and immediately ran over, asking if he could climb it. My first thought was, “Oh no, here comes another meltdown.” Noah had tried to climb rock walls many times before, but because of the motor skill challenges he struggled with, he was never successful, and each attempt ended in frustration and tears. Of course, I told him he could try, but I was completely unprepared for what happened next… Noah flew up that rock wall with confidence and determination, reaching the top and ringing the bell. In that moment, I literally fell to my knees and cried tears of joy. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. After years of watching him struggle with skills most children take for granted, I was witnessing a breakthrough I never thought possible. It was one of the most profound moments of my life and a reminder that sometimes hope can become reality.

So just to be clear… we did not experiment on Noah. We gave him his life back.

“Doing your research” is not a slogan — it’s the whole point

Here is what The Guardian glosses over: every child responds to stem cell therapy differently, and not every clinic is reputable. Both things are true. I have never pretended otherwise.

There are bad actors in this space. There are companies that will take a desperate family’s money and deliver cells of poor quality or none at all. That is real, and it is wrong, and I have no interest in defending it. But the existence of scammers does not mean the therapy itself is a scam — any more than the existence of medical fraud means all of medicine is fraud.

That is exactly why research matters, and it’s what I do well. I work with what I believe are some of the top labs in the world — one in Texas and one in Mexico. They are clean, thoroughly tested, use unvaccinated donors, and provide third-party viability testing demonstrating high cell viability at the time of administration. That is the standard families should demand. That is the standard I help them find.

Let me also correct the record on a few specifics, because details matter:

• I have not referred anyone to the Florida clinic.

• I do not refer anyone to European Wellness, and I do not recommend Dr. Mike Chan’s approach to stem cell therapy. I do recommend the GcMAF that Dr. Chan produces, as a tool to support and boost the immune system — that is a separate matter and should not be conflated.

• I am not a proponent of any family spending crazy sums of money on stem cell therapy. The entire mission of my organization is the complete opposite: to take the financial burden off families who are seeking to treat the underlying, co-morbid conditions associated with autism.

The reporter did, in fact, ask me to comment. As I explained above, I declined — not because I had nothing to say, but because I didn’t trust that my words would be reported honestly rather than twisted to fit his story. So I’m saying it all here instead, in full and on my own terms.

London’s story

In this piece I want to share a video from Courtney Waggoner, an autism mom whose daughter, London, I referred for stem cell therapy.

London was suffering from severe self-injurious behavior — the kind that often stems from an inflamed brain, or encephalitis. It had reached a point where Courtney felt her daughter simply wanted end her life. London was non-speaking and could not communicate her needs.

After one round of matrix stem cells — derived from cord blood and cord tissue — at a cost of $6,800, London can now communicate and speak, and her self-injurious behaviors are gone.

I share Courtney’s account in her own words, in her own video, because it is hers to tell. Every child responds differently. But this is the reality The Guardian left out of its story: real families, real children, real change.

About the reporter’s claim on the Right to Try Act

The Guardian’s reporter wrote that the Right to Try Act is “specifically limited to patients who are terminally ill and have been diagnosed with a ‘life-threatening disease or condition,’” and that “autism does not fall under that definition.”

This is an example of what little homework he actually did.

Autism is not a single, isolated diagnosis. Many children on the spectrum suffer from serious, sometimes life-threatening underlying conditions — encephalitis, PANS/PANDAS, severe seizure disorders, and more. A child whose brain is inflamed, who is injuring himself, who cannot eat or sleep or be kept safe, is not living with a cosmetic inconvenience. These co-morbid conditions are precisely the kind of serious medical realities families are trying to address. Reducing all of that to “autism doesn’t qualify” shows a reporter who never bothered to understand what these children are actually living with.

About Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

These articles paint Kennedy as a demon, and that is so far from the truth.

They make him look like a villain because he thinks outside the box. But look at what the man has actually spent years advocating for: clean food, a healthy lifestyle, a cleaner environment, informed consent, and the right to choose what goes into your body and your child’s body. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by stepping into this fight — but he did it anyway.

I am proud to call him my friend and our HHS Secretary. Nothing he has said has ever been proven a lie. He continues to tell his opposition to show him the science and prove him wrong, and time and again they present nothing. He is doing the best he can in his position, and I am forever grateful for his continued fight.

A word about who funded the people writing about me

The Guardian presents itself as fiercely independent journalism with no billionaire owner. Readers deserve to know the fuller picture.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been one of the largest philanthropic funders of journalism in the world, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to news organizations. The Guardian is among the recipients; reporting based on the Foundation’s own grants database has put the cumulative figure to The Guardian in the range of roughly $12–13 million over the years, including a multi-year commitment of about $3.5 million announced in 2020–2021. These grants are generally tied to the Foundation’s own priority coverage areas.

I’m not the only one raising the obvious question here. The Columbia Journalism Review — not exactly a fringe outlet — examined the Gates Foundation’s journalism funding and flagged the conflict-of-interest concern directly: how objectively can a newsroom cover a benefactor whose money it depends on?

I’ll say plainly what I believe. Bill Gates is deeply tied to the pharmaceutical industry, and the pharmaceutical industry has every financial incentive to make holistic and integrative medicine look reckless and dangerous. When a Gates-funded outlet runs a story portraying biomedical and integrative approaches as a scam, I think readers are entitled to keep that funding relationship in mind. I’m a conservative. I believe in following the money. And the money here is worth following.

To be fair and accurate: these are grants for specific projects, not the Gates Foundation owning The Guardian or dictating individual articles such as this one, and the Foundation says its journalism funding preserves editorial independence. Readers can weigh that for themselves. I simply think they should have the information.

What stem cell therapy actually is

Because so much of the coverage treats “stem cells” as one scary, undefined thing, here is a plain-language overview of the most commonly used types of therapy. This is general education, not medical advice — every family should consult qualified professionals and do their own research.

1. Autologous Stem Cell Therapy. Cells collected from the patient’s own body, typically bone marrow or adipose (fat) tissue. Used to support healing, tissue repair, and regeneration, with minimal risk of immune rejection because the cells are the patient’s own.

2. Allogeneic (Donor) Stem Cell Therapy. Cells obtained from a healthy donor, valued for their regenerative, anti-inflammatory, and immune-modulating properties. No harvesting from the patient is required.

3. Fetal Stem Cell Therapy. Cells derived from fetal tissue, highly proliferative with the potential to develop into various specialized cell types. Their use is controversial, regulated differently around the world, and illegal in the United States.

4. Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy. Cells derived from early-stage embryos. These pluripotent cells can develop into nearly any cell type, making them valuable in research and regenerative medicine. Also illegal in the U.S.

5. Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) from Wharton’s Jelly (Umbilical Cord Tissue). MSCs isolated from the gelatinous tissue surrounding the umbilical cord, known for anti-inflammatory, immune-modulating, and regenerative properties. Among the most commonly used cells in regenerative medicine.

6. Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cell Therapy. Cord blood contains a mixture of regenerative cells, including mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) that support tissue repair and immune regulation, endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) that help repair blood vessels and circulation, and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that generate blood and immune cells.

7. Exosome Therapy (related, but not a stem cell). Exosomes are tiny extracellular vesicles released by stem cells, carrying growth factors, proteins, RNA, and signaling molecules. Rather than delivering living cells, exosome therapy delivers regenerative signals that may help reduce inflammation and support cellular repair and communication.

The Warrior Parents

Here is what I most want people to understand.

We do not spend our savings, travel across the world, and step outside conventional Western medicine to experiment on our children or to make them suffer. We do it to give them a better quality of life — to relieve the real pain of the conditions hiding underneath the autism label.

These are the Warrior Parents. The ones who will risk it all, travel near and far, and break every rule they’re told to follow, for the chance of a better life for their child. I am proud to stand with them.

And let me point out the obvious double standard. The therapies that get demonized are often the safest things we do. The single intervention I recommend most often is a healthy, anti-inflammatory diet — clean food, free of the junk that drives inflammation. That has no contraindications. It cannot hurt a child. It can only make them healthier. If the establishment is willing to attack even that, then perhaps the issue was never really about safety.

Biomedical intervention changed the trajectory of Noah’s life. Rather than accepting that his regression and challenges were untreatable, we chose to look deeper and address the underlying medical, neurological, immune, and gastrointestinal issues that were affecting his health and development. Through years of dedication, research, dietary changes, nutritional support, therapies, and regenerative treatments, Noah regained skills that had been lost and developed abilities that once seemed out of reach. Today, he is a fully functioning young adult who drives, works full-time, travels the world independently, and lives a life that many said would not be possible. While every child’s journey is different, I firmly believe that had we not taken action and pursued biomedical interventions, Noah would not be where he is today.

In closing

I have no quarrel with honest journalism. In fact, I welcome scrutiny, tough questions, and healthy skepticism—I apply all three to this field every single day. Families deserve accurate information, transparency, and thoughtful discussion when making important decisions about their children's health. Asking hard questions is not the problem; it is an essential part of protecting families and helping them make informed choices.

What I will not accept is a one-sided story that erases the children who got better, dismisses the parents who fought for them, and conveniently ignores the funding behind the byline.

My son is the proof that I live with every day. And I would do all of it again.

— Tracy Slepcevic

Founder & President, Autism Health Inc.
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom | IACC Member

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.PurHealth.com

This article reflects my personal experience and opinions. It is not medical advice. Stem cell therapy for autism is not an FDA-approved treatment, outcomes vary from child to child, and any family considering these or other interventions should consult qualified medical professionals and thoroughly research any clinic or provider.

Nutrition.

More specifically, the critical role that B vitamins play in brain development, neurological function, energy production, detoxification pathways, communication, behavior, and overall health.

Over the last two decades, research has continued to point toward abnormalities in methylation, folate metabolism, mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, and neurotransmitter regulation in many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These pathways all rely heavily on adequate levels of B vitamins. Source

While B vitamins are not a “cure” for autism, supporting deficiencies and optimizing these pathways may help improve quality of life, behavior, communication, sleep, focus, energy, and overall neurological function in some individuals.

Why B Vitamins Matter for the Brain

B vitamins act as essential cofactors throughout the nervous system.

They help support:

• Neurotransmitter production
• Methylation pathways
• DNA repair and gene expression
• Energy production within mitochondria
• Detoxification pathways
• Myelin formation and nerve signaling
• Immune regulation
• Reducing oxidative stress

Researchers have repeatedly identified abnormalities in folate metabolism, methylation capacity, glutathione production, and vitamin B12 status in subsets of children with autism. Source

When these pathways become impaired, the effects can ripple throughout the entire body.

Vitamin B1 (Thiamine): Focus, Attention, and Brain Energy

One of the most important jobs of Vitamin B1 is helping the brain convert glucose into usable energy.

When thiamine levels are low, individuals may experience:

• Brain fog
• Poor focus
• Fatigue
• Difficulty concentrating
• Reduced mental stamina

Many parents describe this as their child “zoning out” or appearing disconnected from their environment.

Because the brain consumes enormous amounts of energy, even mild deficiencies may affect attention, processing speed, and cognitive performance. Source

Thiamine has also been studied for mitochondrial dysfunction, a condition increasingly recognized in subsets of individuals with autism. Source

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): Supporting Energy and Sensory Processing

Vitamin B2 is essential for mitochondrial function and cellular energy production. Source

Low riboflavin levels may contribute to:

• Fatigue
• Sensory overload
• Increased oxidative stress
• Reduced energy production

Many individuals with autism experience heightened sensory processing challenges. While sensory issues are complex and multifactorial, proper mitochondrial support may help improve resilience and neurological regulation.

Riboflavin is also involved in recycling glutathione, one of the body’s most important antioxidants.

Vitamin B3 (Niacin): Mood, Behavior, and Neurotransmitters

Vitamin B3 plays a critical role in producing NAD+, a molecule essential for cellular energy and neurological function. Source

Niacin contributes to:

• Dopamine regulation
• Serotonin production
• Mood stability
• Cognitive function

When levels are insufficient, some individuals may experience:

• Hyperactivity
• Irritability
• Difficulty with impulse control
• Mood dysregulation

Many clinicians working in integrative and functional medicine recognize the importance of adequate B3 levels for nervous system regulation. Source

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid): Stress Resilience and Adrenal Support

Vitamin B5 is often called the “anti-stress vitamin.” Source

It supports:

• Adrenal function
• Hormone production
• Energy metabolism
• Neurotransmitter synthesis

Children experiencing chronic stress on the nervous system may show signs such as:

• Low stamina
• Frequent meltdowns
• Fatigue followed by periods of hyperactivity
• Difficulty regulating emotions

Many parents describe this as being “wired but exhausted.”

Pantothenic acid helps support the body’s stress response systems and energy reserves.

Vitamin B6 (P5P): One of the Most Important B Vitamins in Autism

Vitamin B6, especially in its active form P5P (Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate), has been studied extensively in autism. Source

B6 is involved in producing:

• Serotonin
• Dopamine
• GABA
• Melatonin

These neurotransmitters affect:

• Behavior
• Communication
• Sleep
• Mood
• Emotional regulation

When B6 levels are low, symptoms may include:

• Sleep disturbances
• Excessive stimming
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Difficulty regulating emotions

Many practitioners utilize B6 alongside magnesium because the two nutrients work synergistically. Source

Parents often report improvements in sleep, calmer behavior, and reduced sensory overwhelm when deficiencies are addressed.

Vitamin B9 (Folate and Folinic Acid): A Game Changer for Some Children

One of the most exciting areas of autism research involves folate metabolism.

Researchers have discovered that many children with autism possess folate receptor autoantibodies that interfere with the transport of folate into the brain. Some studies estimate these antibodies may be present in approximately 70–75% of children with autism. Source

This has led researchers to investigate high-dose folinic acid (leucovorin), a bioavailable form of folate.

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, researchers found that folinic acid significantly improved verbal communication in children with autism and language impairment, particularly in children positive for folate receptor autoantibodies. Source

Leucovorin (folinic acid) is a bioactive form of folate that has shown promising results in some children with autism, particularly those with cerebral folate deficiency or folate receptor autoantibodies. Research suggests that Leucovorin may help improve language, communication, attention, social interaction, and overall neurological function by supporting folate transport into the brain, methylation pathways, neurotransmitter production, and brain development. While not every child responds the same way, studies indicate that folinic acid may be a valuable tool in a personalized, whole-body approach to autism care. Source

Additional studies have reported improvements in:

• Receptive language
• Expressive language
• Attention
• Social interaction
• Stereotypical behaviors

when folinic acid was used in appropriate patients.

Vitamin B12 (Methylcobalamin): The Superstar of Methylation

Among all B vitamins, Vitamin B12 has received some of the most attention in autism research.

Methyl-B12 supports:

• Methylation pathways
• Glutathione production
• Detoxification
• DNA repair
• Neurotransmitter synthesis

Several studies have demonstrated improvements in metabolic abnormalities and behavioral symptoms following methyl-B12 treatment.

Researchers found that children receiving methyl-B12 showed improvements in methylation capacity and markers associated with cellular protection.

Clinical reports have documented improvements in:

• Speech and language
• Receptive language
• Hyperactivity
• Attention
• Social engagement
• Overall functioning

in subsets of children receiving methyl-B12 support.

Research suggests that methylcobalamin (Methyl-B12) may be particularly beneficial for individuals with autism who have impaired methylation pathways, including those with MTHFR gene variants. Studies have shown that methyl-B12, especially when combined with folinic acid, can improve glutathione production, support detoxification, and help correct metabolic abnormalities frequently observed in autism. These findings suggest that targeted nutritional support may also play an important role in improving neurological function and overall health in certain individuals with ASD. Source

B Vitamins and Other Neurological Conditions

The importance of B vitamins extends far beyond autism.

Research has linked deficiencies or metabolic abnormalities involving B vitamins to:

• ADHD
• Anxiety disorders
• Depression
• Cognitive decline
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Parkinson’s disease
• Neuropathy
• Migraine disorders
• Chronic fatigue syndromes

because these vitamins support many of the same pathways involved in neurological function and brain health. Source

Food Sources of B Vitamins

While supplementation may be appropriate for some individuals under the guidance of a healthcare professional, food should always be the foundation of a nutrient-rich diet. B vitamins are naturally abundant in a variety of whole foods and play a critical role in supporting brain function, energy production, methylation, and nervous system health. Source

Some of the best food sources of B vitamins include:

• Liver and other organ meets
• Milk & yogurt (preferably raw)
• Grass-fed beef
• Wild-caught salmon and fish
• Pasture-raised eggs
• Organic chicken and turkey
• Shellfish (especially clams, oysters, and mussels)
• Nutritional yeast
• Lentils
• Black beans and chickpeas
• Spinach and other leafy greens
• Avocados
• Sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds

Additional sources include almonds, walnuts, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and fermented foods.

Because many children with autism have restricted diets due to sensory sensitivities, food preferences, or gastrointestinal challenges, they may be at greater risk for nutritional deficiencies. Ensuring adequate intake of B-vitamin-rich foods and when appropriate, targeted supplementation can be an important step in supporting overall health, neurological function, and optimal development.

A Whole-Body Perspective

One of the greatest lessons many of us have learned on this journey is that behavior is often a reflection of underlying physiology.

A child who cannot focus may be struggling with energy production.

A child who is melting down may be overwhelmed by inflammation, sensory stress, or nutrient deficiencies.

A child who cannot sleep may have neurotransmitter imbalances affecting their nervous system.

This is why a whole-body approach matters.

When we support the body’s foundational systems, we create the opportunity for growth, healing, and progress.

A Message from Warrior Mom

As parents, we often find ourselves searching for the next therapy, the next specialist, or the next breakthrough. But sometimes the most powerful changes begin with the basics… supporting the body so the brain can function at its best.

B vitamins may seem simple, yet they play a profound role in energy production, neurological function, communication, mood, sleep, detoxification, and overall well-being. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for autism, understanding and addressing nutritional deficiencies can be an important piece of the puzzle for many individuals.

The autism journey has taught me that progress often comes from connecting the dots and looking beyond symptoms to uncover what the body truly needs. Every child is unique. Every path is different. But every child deserves the opportunity to thrive.

Keep learning. Keep asking questions. Keep advocating for your family. Small changes can create meaningful progress, and sometimes the answers we seek are found in the foundational pieces we overlook.

Most importantly, never underestimate the power of a parent who refuses to give up.

With gratitude and unwavering determination,

Tracy Slepcevic
Founder & President, Autism Health Inc.
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism

“Support the body. Support the brain. Empower the future.” ❤️

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.HealingAutism.org

Disclaimer

This article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before beginning any supplement, medication, or treatment protocol. Research in autism is ongoing, and responses to nutritional interventions vary from person to person.

Not because parents didn’t care deeply about their children. In fact, it was the opposite. Parents were desperate to understand what was happening, to find answers, to help their children thrive. But too often, the moment they began asking deeper questions about causes, about biology, about environmental influences, they were met with resistance, dismissal, or silence.

Just accept the diagnosis.
Just manage the behaviors.
Just move on.

But parents (like myself) didn’t stop.

We couldn’t.

Because what we were seeing in our children… the regressions, the gut issues, the immune challenges, the neurological symptoms, told a very different story than what we were being told.

Something Is Not Right

Autism is no longer rare.

Today, it affects approximately 1 in 31 children in the United States and 1 in 12 boys in the state of California. That statistic alone should stop us in our tracks. This is not a subtle increase. This is not a minor shift. This is a dramatic rise that has occurred over a relatively short period of time, and it is an epidemic.

To say this is simply the result of “better awareness” or “improved diagnostics” does not fully explain what families and clinicians are witnessing on the ground. We are seeing more children with complex medical needs, more severe symptoms, and more co-occurring conditions than ever before.

This is not just a diagnostic trend.

It is a signal.

A signal that something in our environment, our lifestyles, and our modern world has fundamentally changed and that change is impacting our children in profound ways.

The Missing Conversation

For years, the dominant narrative around autism has focused heavily on genetics. While genetics may play a role in susceptibility, they do not change rapidly enough to explain the sharp increase we are seeing today.

What has changed dramatically is our environment.

We are living in a world where children are exposed, often from conception, to a complex mixture of environmental stressors:

• Increased exposure to pesticides, herbicides, and industrial chemicals

• Heavy metals present in vaccines, air, soil, water, and even food sources

• Highly processed foods filled with additives, preservatives, and artificial ingredients

• Disruption of the gut microbiome due to diet, medications, and environmental toxins

• Chronic immune system activation from ongoing environmental and physiological stress

These are no longer fringe concerns. They are increasingly being explored in scientific and medical discussions, as well as acknowledged in broader health policy conversations.

There is growing recognition that autism is frequently accompanied by underlying medical conditions… including gastrointestinal dysfunction, immune dysregulation, mitochondrial issues, and metabolic imbalances.

This represents a meaningful shift.

Because when we begin to acknowledge the biology, we open the door to new possibilities for support, treatment, and healing.

From Labels to Root Causes

When my son Noah was diagnosed, I was told what so many parents hear:

There is no treatment.
There is nothing you can do.
This is lifelong and you will just learn to manage it.

But as a mother, that didn’t sit right with me.

I chose to look deeper. I began asking different questions… not just about behavior, but about biology. What was happening inside his body? What systems were struggling? Where were the imbalances?

I began exploring:

• His gut health and digestive function

• His immune system and inflammatory responses

• His body’s ability to detoxify and eliminate harmful substances

What I discovered was life-changing.

Because for many children, autism is not simply a behavioral or neurological label… it is a whole-body condition involving multiple systems working in distress.

When we begin to address those underlying imbalances, we were no longer limited to managing symptoms. We created an opportunity to support the body in a deeper, more meaningful way.

And that is where hope begins.

Why This Conversation Is Still Controversial

Despite the growing body of evidence and the lived experiences of countless families, the discussion around environmental contributors to autism remains controversial.

Why?

Because it challenges long-standing assumptions and deeply rooted systems.

It raises uncomfortable but necessary questions about:

• Environmental policies and regulations

• Industrial and agricultural practices

• Medical frameworks that prioritize symptom management over root-cause investigation

• The reluctance to revisit or question established narratives

These are not easy conversations. They require humility, openness, and a willingness to evolve.

But avoiding the conversation does not protect our children.

It delays progress. It limits innovation. And it prevents families from accessing information that could make a meaningful difference in their child’s life.

Parents Are Leading the Way

One of the most powerful aspects of this movement is where it has come from.

Not from large institutions.
Not from top-down directives.

But from parents.

Parents who refused to accept “there’s nothing you can do.”
Parents who stayed up late researching, connecting dots, and seeking solutions.
Parents who trusted their instincts when something didn’t feel right.

These families have become advocates, educators, and change-makers, and not because they set out to, but because they had to.

This is not about placing blame.

It is about taking responsibility.

Responsibility to ask questions.
Responsibility to explore options.
Responsibility to advocate for our children when systems fall short.

And in doing so, parents have helped shift the conversation in ways that can no longer be ignored.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We move forward with courage, clarity, and collaboration.

We advocate for:

• Expanded research into environmental contributors and root causes

• Comprehensive screening for underlying medical conditions in children with autism

• Greater access to integrative and personalized healthcare approaches

• Open, honest dialogue that allows for exploration without fear or censorship

We also work to bridge the gap between research, clinical practice, and lived experience because all three are essential.

And above all, we listen.

We listen to families.
We listen to practitioners.
We listen to the data.

Because the path forward requires all voices at the table.

A Message to Parents

If you are reading this and something inside you is telling you to look deeper and to ask more questions, to seek more answers, to explore beyond what you’ve been told…

Trust that instinct.

You are not alone in this journey. There is a growing community of parents, practitioners, and advocates who are walking this path alongside you.

You are not wrong for questioning.
You are not misguided for exploring alternatives.
And you are not powerless in your child’s journey.

There is hope.
There are options.
And there is a future where our children are supported in more comprehensive and meaningful ways.

Final Thoughts

The conversation around autism is changing.

What was once dismissed is now being reconsidered.
What was once silenced is now being spoken.
What was once fragmented is now beginning to come together.

We are witnessing the early stages of a shift… one that recognizes the complexity of autism and the importance of looking beyond labels to understand the full picture.

And while there is still much work to be done, one thing is clear:

This conversation is not going away.

In fact, it is only just beginning.

With Sincere Gratitude,
Tracy Slepcevic
Founder of Autism Health Inc. & the Autism Health Summit
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.PurHealth.com

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider regarding any medical concerns.

The meeting was publicly accessible, and a full recording has now been made available for transparency and public review.

Opening the Conversation

The meeting began with introductions from public members, each sharing their background and outlining their top priorities. This was followed by introductions from federal representatives across various HHS agencies.

In my introduction, I briefly shared my personal journey as a mother navigating autism with my son, along with my professional background as an integrative health practitioner and advocate. I outlined two primary priorities:

• Expanding access to a more comprehensive model of care… one that addresses underlying medical conditions and is covered by insurance
• Examining the increasing prevalence of autism, particularly cases involving regression, and exploring contributing environmental factors

These priorities reflect what so many families across the country are experiencing in real time.

Public Comment: A Critical Component

The public comment period included several speakers, among them Aaron Siri, who spoke on issues related to medical safety and accountability.

Following public comments, IACC members were given the opportunity to respond. During this portion of the meeting, I emphasized the importance of continued research into health outcomes and environmental contributors associated with autism. I also highlighted the need for rigorous, transparent, and published research study on vaccinated children vs. unvaccinated children that can help inform public health decisions and build trust. I also discussed the study that was conducted out of Henry Ford Medical Center in Michigan and the significance in health issues between the vaccinated group vs. the unvaccinated group, but Henry Ford refused to publish the study. You can find more information on this study at www.aninconvenientstudy.com, which is a documentary produced by Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN).

Policy Recommendations to HHS

A significant portion of the meeting focused on reviewing and discussing recommendations to HHS. These recommendations were developed to address critical gaps in care, safety, and research.

1. Strengthening EPSDT and Clinical Guidance

The committee recommended that HHS direct the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to clarify Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) requirements for children with autism. This includes ensuring comprehensive screening for co-occurring medical conditions and improving clinical training through the Health Resources and Services Administration.

2. Establishing a Definition for Profound Autism

The recommendation calls for adopting a standardized designation for “profound autism,” based on functional criteria such as minimal speech and the need for continuous supervision. This population remains significantly underrepresented in research despite having the highest support needs.

3. Addressing Wandering and Elopement Safety

The committee urged HHS to coordinate with federal partners, including FEMA and the Department of Justice, to better utilize existing emergency alert systems for individuals with autism who wander or elope. This recommendation focuses on improving response times and preventing tragic outcomes.

4. Interagency Implementation Directive

To ensure accountability, the committee recommended that HHS issue a formal directive outlining how these recommendations would be implemented across agencies, with timelines and follow-up reporting.

A Moment That Matters: Safety Cannot Wait

One of the most emotional and important discussions was centered around safety, specifically wandering and elopement.

As a parent, I shared my personal experience of my son Noah going missing for nearly two hours while in the care of an after-school program. No authorities were notified. No urgency was demonstrated, and we (his parents) were never even notified. That experience stays with you forever.

This is not an isolated issue. It is a known and documented risk in the autism community, with real consequences.

While there was discussion among some federal representatives about reviewing these recommendations internally, the urgency expressed by public members reflected the seriousness of the issue. Safety is not theoretical… it is immediate, and it impacts families every day.

You would expect that implementing safety protocols for wandering and elopement would be a clear priority for HHS. However, one particular federal representative indicated that this recommendation requires further discussion within her department. This raises an important question: given the well-documented risks and fatalities associated with elopement in individuals with autism, what additional deliberation is needed before action is taken?! This issue was previously raised during a 2011 IACC meeting, yet meaningful progress has remained limited. During the discussion, I asked whether we are once again facing a prolonged delay in addressing a critical safety concern. For families like mine, this is not theoretical… it is an urgent matter that demands timely and decisive action.

Voting and Process

The agenda clearly indicated that a vote would take place on these recommendations. While some federal members stated that they needed additional time to review the proposals within their respective departments, several federal members engaged constructively and ultimately aligned with the priorities being put forward. Their willingness to cross traditional lines and support these recommendations was both notable and appreciated. This moment highlighted the need for continued alignment on process, expectations, and timely decision-making as we work toward meaningful progress and change.

Public and federal members proceeded with a vote, reaching majority vote on the recommendations. It is important to note that the IACC serves in an advisory capacity, and our role is to provide informed guidance to HHS, not to enact policy directly. This does not mean that the recommendations will be implemented.

Formation of Working Groups

To support ongoing progress, the committee voted to establish three working groups:

• Communication and Safety
• Research and Medical Care
• Lifespan Supports

These groups will focus on developing recommendations and advancing discussions in key priority areas.

Public and Federal Perspectives

A topic raised during the meeting was the importance of strong collaboration between public and federal members. As with any advisory body, differing perspectives are part of the process. Constructive dialogue and mutual respect are essential to moving forward in a way that benefits the autism community, but I personally felt there was a divide.

Addressing Public Narratives

Following the meeting, some external commentary, including statements from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, raised concerns about the process stating that they were “ALARMED by IACCs process without public input.”

It is important to clarify that public participation was part of the meeting structure. Individuals had the opportunity to apply to provide public comment, and those voices were included. Transparency and public engagement remain central to the IACC process and the current committee.

Moving Forward

This first meeting of 2026 made one thing clear: the issues facing the autism community are complex, urgent, and deeply personal for many of us at the table.

There will be three IACC meetings each year, and this committee is committed to continuing the work, bringing forward recommendations, asking hard questions, and advocating for meaningful progress.

A Closing Message from Warrior Mom

I don’t sit at this table just as a professional. I sit here as a mother.

A mother who has lived the fear, the uncertainty, and the fight for answers. A mother who has seen firsthand the gaps in care, the lack of urgency around safety, and the challenges families face every single day.

But I also sit here with hope.

Hope that by showing up, speaking truthfully, and working together, we can create change that truly supports our children… not just in words, but in action.

We will continue to ask the hard questions.
We will continue to advocate for safety, care, and accountability.
And we will continue to be a voice for those who need it most.

This work matters. And we are just getting started.

— Tracy Slepcevic, “Warrior Mom”
President & Founder of Autism Health Inc.

www.AutismHealth.com | www.WarriorMom.com | www.AHSconference.com

Understanding.

Because autism is not just a behavioral condition.
It is not just a neurological label.
And it certainly is not something that can be addressed through a one-size-fits-all approach.

Yet that is exactly how most families are forced to navigate it.

A Fragmented System That Leaves Families Behind

When a child is diagnosed with autism, parents are often thrown into a system that is completely fragmented.

You’re sent to a behavioral therapist.
Then a speech therapist.
Then maybe an occupational therapist.

Each one focuses on a specific piece of the puzzle, but rarely does anyone step back and ask:

What is happening inside this child’s body?

Where is the investigation into gut health, immune dysfunction, inflammation, toxin exposure, or nutritional deficiencies?

Instead of looking at the why, families are handed strategies to manage the what.

And while therapies absolutely have their place, they are not the full picture.

Autism Is a Whole Body Condition

Over the years, both as a practitioner and as a mother, I have come to understand something deeply:

You cannot separate the brain from the body.

When a child is struggling with chronic inflammation, gut dysbiosis, mitochondrial dysfunction, or environmental toxic load, it will show up in their behavior, cognition, communication, and overall quality of life.

Behavior is not random.
It is communication.

And if we only focus on modifying behavior without addressing the underlying imbalances, we are missing the opportunity for real progress.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

I have worked with and spoken to countless families who were told their child would never improve beyond a certain point.

And yet, when we begin addressing underlying conditions, everything starts to shift.

One mother came to me exhausted and overwhelmed. Her son had severe gastrointestinal issues, constant irritability, and minimal communication. After focusing on gut health, removing inflammatory foods, and supporting his microbiome, she began to see changes she had never been told were possible. His eye contact improved. His language began to emerge. His discomfort decreased, and with it, many of the behaviors.

Another family struggled with extreme sensory issues and aggressive outbursts. Traditional therapies helped to a degree, but progress plateaued. When they began addressing environmental toxins and supporting detoxification pathways, along with targeted nutritional support, the intensity and frequency of behaviors began to decrease. For the first time, they felt like they were reaching their child.

These are not isolated stories.

They are happening every day when we start looking beyond the surface.

What Families Actually Need

Families do not just need therapy schedules and IEP meetings.

They need answers.
They need options.
They need education.
They need support.
They need hope.

They need a place where practitioners, researchers, and parents come together not in silos, but in collaboration.

Because real progress happens when we connect the dots.

Bridging the Gap Between Science and Real Life

One of the greatest challenges in the autism space today is the gap between emerging science and what families actually have access to.

There is incredible research happening in areas like the gut-brain connection, immune regulation, regenerative therapies, and nutritional interventions.

But too often, that information stays locked away.

Families are left searching, piecing things together on their own, hoping they are making the right decisions.

That should not be the case.

Why We Created the Autism Health Summit

This is exactly why I created the Autism Health Summit.

Not just as another conference, but as a movement toward a more comprehensive and integrated approach to autism care.

A place where science meets real-world application.
Where families gain access to cutting-edge information.
Where medical professionals come to learn, collaborate, and grow.

At the Summit, we talk about what truly matters. Addressing underlying conditions. Exploring innovative therapies. Understanding the body as a whole system. Empowering families with knowledge they can actually use.

This year, we are honored to welcome headline speakers including Aaron Siri, Del Bigtree, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Toby Rogers, and more!

You Are Not Alone on This Journey

Along the way, something beautiful happens…

You find your people.

The friendships built on this journey are rooted in shared experiences, deep understanding, and unwavering support. We lift each other through the hardest moments and celebrate victories together.

This journey can feel isolating, but it does not have to be.

An Invitation

If you are a parent searching for answers, a practitioner wanting to expand your understanding, or someone who believes we can do better for our children, I invite you to join us.

The Autism Health Summit will be held April 24-26 in San Diego.

You can attend in person or virtually. Virtual attendees will receive access to the recordings for up to two years, including all presentations.

Use promo code Autism50 to receive $50 off your in-person ticket.

Register today at AHSconference.com.

Because when we start looking at autism through a whole body lens, everything changes.

A Message from Warrior Mom

If there is one thing I want you to take away from this, it’s this…

Never stop searching. Never stop asking questions. And never let anyone tell you that your child’s potential is limited.

I have walked this road. I have sat in the uncertainty, the fear, and the exhaustion. I have been told, “This is just the way it is.” And I chose not to accept that.

Because our children are worth more.
They deserve more.
And so do you.

There is something incredibly powerful about a parent’s intuition. That quiet voice inside you that says, “There has to be more.” Listen to it. Trust it. Let it guide you.

You are not alone in this journey. There is a community of parents, practitioners, and advocates who are rising together, asking deeper questions, and refusing to settle for surface-level answers.

This is not just about autism.
This is about restoring health, reclaiming hope, and changing the future for our children.

Keep going. Keep fighting. Keep believing.

With love and unwavering strength,
Tracy Slepcevic
President & Co-Founder of Autism Health Inc. & The Autism Health Summit
Bestselling Author of Warrior Mom: A Mother’s Journey In Healing Her Son with Autism

www.AutismHealth.com | www.AHSconference.com | www.WarriorMom.com

Disclaimer:
The information shared in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your or your child’s health care plan. The views expressed are based on personal experience and professional perspective and are not a substitute for individualized medical guidance.

Today would have been my nephew Brandon’s 37th birthday.

But Brandon was never “just” my nephew. He was my Godson, and my son in every way that mattered. My husband and I raised him for the better part of his life, loved him deeply, and tried to help carry the pain that had been placed on his shoulders far too early. On June 3, 2024, Brandon took his life after years of suffering from severe mental illness and addiction.

Some losses never stop echoing, and this is one of them.

Today, I am writing not only as an aunt, not only as a Godmother, but as a mother whose heart still aches for the boy she loved, the young man she watched grow, and the soul she wishes she could have saved.

Mental illness in this country is not rare. It is not someone else’s issue. It is not a fringe crisis. It is one of the greatest public health emergencies of our time. In 2022, an estimated 59.3 million U.S. adults, or 23.1% of the adult population, were living with a mental illness. That is more than one in five adults. NIMH also reports that serious mental illness affected 15.4 million adults that year. Among adolescents, the suffering is also staggering: NIMH estimates that 20.1% of youth ages 12 to 17 had at least one major depressive episode in 2021, and CDC data from 2023 found that about 40% of high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Source

The suicide numbers are equally heartbreaking. According to the CDC, more than 49,000 people died by suicide in the United States in 2023, which was about one death every 11 minutes. CDC FastStats now lists 48,824 suicide deaths in 2024, with a rate of 14.4 deaths per 100,000 people. Behind every number is a name, a family, a story, and a future that was cut short. Source

And suicide rarely happens in a vacuum. CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System shows that, when circumstances were known, suicides were most often preceded by mental health or substance use problems, suicidal thoughts or plans, depressed mood, or a recent or impending crisis. NIMH also emphasizes that substance use and mental disorders are often deeply interconnected, with each increasing the risk and severity of the other. Source

There is a powerful documentary created by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. titled Recovering America: A Film About Healing Our Addiction Crisis, which shines a light on the devastating addiction epidemic in our country. The film shares deeply human stories of individuals battling addiction while also exploring solutions rooted in community, purpose, and compassionate care. What makes this documentary even more meaningful to me is that it was dedicated in memory of Brandon. His life, his struggles, and his story are part of a much larger crisis that is impacting families across this nation. This film is not just about addiction… it is about loss, about hope, and about the urgent need to do better for those who are suffering. Watching it, I am reminded that Brandon’s life mattered, his pain was real, and his story deserves to be part of a larger conversation so that others may be saved.

Brandon’s Story

His life was marked by trauma long before the final tragedy. He suffered severe abuse. He knew abandonment. He knew instability. He knew what it was like to long for love and safety and not receive either in the way every child deserves. All he ever wanted was his mother’s love, and I believe that was a wound he carried his entire life.

Trauma, especially in childhood, is not just an emotional scar. It changes the nervous system. It changes the stress response. It changes how a person sees the world, how they trust, how they cope, and how they survive. CDC defines adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, as potentially traumatic events such as abuse, neglect, household substance use, family mental illness, and violence. These experiences are strongly associated with worse mental health outcomes, substance abuse, and suicide risk later in life. Source

NIMH has also noted that extreme caregiving environments, including abuse and neglect, can affect brain development itself. NIDA states plainly that violence, abuse, neglect, and family or community instability are associated with substance use and substance use disorders. In other words, when a child is repeatedly traumatized, the damage does not simply “go away” because they grow older. It often follows them into adolescence and adulthood unless there is deep, compassionate, and effective intervention. Source

For Brandon, one of the deepest layers of that trauma came from the year he spent at Bethel Boys Academy in Mississippi. In HBO Max’s Teen Torture, Inc., episode 2, “Generation Silent,” the series examines abuse tied to Bethel Boys and related programs in that world. The broader public record around those institutions includes long-standing abuse allegations, cruelty, and severe mistreatment of boys placed there. Brandon spent one year there being beaten, abused, flogged, starved, and tortured, cut off from the outside world. That kind of suffering does not disappear when a child leaves the building. It lives in the body. It lives in the mind. It lives in the soul.

After the destruction of the school following Hurricane Katrina, Brandon escaped and hitchhiked from Mississippi to California at just 15 years old to be with my husband and me. Imagine that for a moment: a child so desperate for safety, for home, for love, that he crossed the country to find it. By the time Brandon came to us, he was already too far gone, numbing his pain with drugs.

No child should ever have to survive that.

And yet in America, far too many do.

When we talk about mental illness, we have to be honest about how complex it is. Mental illness does not come from one single cause. NIMH explains that common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety are likely the result of a combination of life experiences, environmental influences, and genetic variation. That means we cannot reduce this crisis to a single talking point or a single prescription. We have to look at the whole picture. Source

That whole picture includes trauma. It includes abuse. It includes neglect. It includes addiction. It includes loneliness, family breakdown, sleep disruption, financial instability, social disconnection, and barriers to treatment. It also includes emerging environmental questions that deserve serious, rigorous, honest study rather than dismissal or politicization.

For example, growing evidence links ultra-processed food consumption with worse mental health outcomes, including higher odds of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Reviews published in peer-reviewed journals have found consistent associations between diets high in ultra-processed foods and depression, while also calling for more research on mechanisms and causality. Source

Researchers are also studying environmental toxicants and stressors such as air pollution. Recent reviews have found associations between long-term exposure to air pollution and a greater risk of depression and anxiety. This does not mean every exposure directly causes a psychiatric illness in a simple one-to-one way, but it does mean the environment in which we live is affecting the brain more than our healthcare system has been willing to confront. Source

Food additives and preservatives are another area that deserves far more scrutiny. A 2024 review noted concerns about artificial colorants, benzoate preservatives, sweeteners, and emulsifiers, and the growing literature suggesting that some food additives may affect long-term health, including neurobehavioral pathways. This area is still developing, but it is increasingly difficult to deny that what we eat, drink, inhale, and absorb matters to the brain. Source

Vaccination is often included in broader public debates about environmental contributors to chronic illness and neurological outcomes. At the same time, the strongest established evidence on mental illness continues to point far more clearly to multifactorial drivers such as trauma, genetics, substance use, social stress, and broader environmental exposures. That distinction matters because if we are going to speak about this crisis with integrity, we have to separate what is clearly established from what is still debated or under study. Source

What is clearly established is that untreated trauma can lead to depression. Depression can become self-medication. Self-medication can become addiction. Addiction can deepen despair. And despair, when combined with isolation and hopelessness, can become fatal.

We are living in a country where millions are suffering, families are overwhelmed, treatment is often fragmented or inaccessible, and many people do not receive help until they are already in crisis. NIMH notes that only about half of people with mental illnesses receive treatment. And even when treatment is available, it often fails to fully address the roots of the suffering: trauma, toxic stress, family wounds, environmental burden, and the profound need for human connection. Source

This is why I believe we must do better.

We need better prevention.
We need earlier intervention.
We need honest conversations about trauma.
We need stronger support for addiction recovery.
We need a healthcare system willing to look upstream instead of only managing collapse after it happens.
We need to protect children from abuse.
We need accountability for institutions that traumatize vulnerable youth.
And we need to stop treating mental illness as though it exists separately from the body, the family, the environment, and the soul.

Because it does not.

For me, this issue will never be theoretical.

It has Brandon’s face.
It has Brandon’s voice.
It has Brandon’s story.

I watched him grow up. I watched him carry pain that was never his fault. I watched him live with wounds that should never have been inflicted on any child. I also watched the tenderness in him, the longing in him, the parts of him that still wanted love, peace, and belonging.

And that is what makes this day so heavy.

Today would have been Brandon’s 37th birthday.

Instead, I am left with memories.

I am left with grief.
I am left with love.
I am left with the ache of missing him.
And I am left with the unshakable truth that he mattered.

Brandon, you were so deeply loved.
You were never forgotten.
You were never just a statistic.
You were my nephew, my godson, and in so many ways, my son.

I miss you more than words can say.
I carry you with me.
I will always carry you with me.

Brandon’s story is not just his… it is a reflection of a much larger crisis that is touching families across this country. But to me, he will never be a statistic. He will always be the boy I loved, the young man I believed in, and the soul I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

If sharing his story can help even one person feel seen, one family feel less alone, or one life be saved, then his life continues to have purpose.

Brandon, your memory will remain near and dear to my heart for the rest of my life.

And on this day, your birthday, I honor you with my love, my tears, and my promise to keep speaking the truth for those who are suffering in silence.

Brandon, I love you. I miss you. And I will honor you always.

With love, always and forever,
Tracy Slepcevic, your Auntie Mom