(NewsNation) — Fitness guru Jillian Michaels says she supports Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to determine the cause of autism.
“Autism is on the rise, that’s not debatable,” Michaels told NewsNation’s Connell McShane on Monday. “To want to get to the bottom of what’s going on is something we should welcome.”
Kennedy, the nation’s health secretary, recently promised a “massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of the “autism epidemic” by September.
Some health experts see that timeline as unrealistic, but Michaels says the timing is less important than the research itself.
“What’s the worst thing if it is unrealistic? What happens if it’s six months later?” Michaels said.
Michaels, who hosts the “Keeping it Real” podcast, said the more significant concern is not having conditions like autism properly researched “to get to the bottom of what is going on.”
Kennedy hasn’t offered many details on how his study will differ from what researchers have been doing. The National Institutes of Health spends about $300 million a year researching autism.
No single cause of autism has been determined, but both genetic and environmental factors are believed to play a significant role, according to the CDC. Scientists have not found a link between childhood vaccines and autism, despite what Kennedy has said.
Researchers have attributed much of the rise in autism diagnoses to more widespread screening and changes in how the developmental disability is diagnosed.