On Feb. 13, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the “Make America Healthy Again Commission.” The commission’s goal is to increase American life expectancy to meet the world’s average by “drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease.” Although the commission has several noble goals, including lowering cancer and asthma rates, the reasons for targeting certain conditions with increased diagnosis rates reinforce harmful stereotypes and further harm those diagnosed with the conditions.

One condition with a growing number of diagnoses is autism spectrum disorder. The executive order notes one in 36 children in the United States are currently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a “staggering increase” from the one to four out of 10,000 children diagnosed in the 1980s. The executive order also highlights an increase in the number of children medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with the number of prescriptions to manage ADHD symptoms rising from 3.2 million in 2019-2020 to 3.4 million today.

There are several problems with how these conditions are addressed and how the data on increased diagnoses and prescriptions are presented. The rise in diagnoses has little to do with health; the diagnostic binaries of both autism and ADHD have dramatically expanded over the past several decades, thus explaining the drastic change in the number of diagnoses. There were not fewer autistic individuals in the 1980s. There were only more Americans undiagnosed and left to struggle to conform to a society not designed for them. 

In framing the increased diagnoses of autism and ADHD as contributing to a public health crisis, Trump and the “Make America Healthy Again Commission” reinforce harmful misconceptions about neurodivergence. These conditions are not issues to be solved but instead must be better understood. Expanding access to health care resources, ensuring legal rights to accommodations and celebrating neurodiversity are better alternatives to policies that contribute to harmful narratives about neurodivergence. If the commission seeks to truly improve the health of the nation, there must be a shift in how neurodivergence is discussed.