1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am a constituent writing to you about the news that RFK Jr. wants to use the Medicaid/Medicare rolls to build their database on autism. While the HHS's position on autism has been offensive and the plan to create a voluntary database has been disturbing - both to say the least - the plan to harvest private information involuntarily is blood-chilling. As the mother of an autistic child and a Jewish person who lost many family members in the Holocaust, the idea of a registry of people that a powerful public official has a well established track record of seeing as a tragedy that needs to be routed out i s intensely concerning. Not to mention all the attendant concerns about medical privacy in general, vaccine denialism, etc. In Illinois, Governor Pritzker has already signed an executive order to protect the collection and distribution of data for his state's autistic citizens. I am writing to ask what you are doing to protect your autistic constituents? And to plead with you to follow in Pritzker's footsteps and take action to stand up to this terrifying threat.