Washington DC - Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is again in hot water after he recently compared the Covid-19 pandemic to what he describes as an ongoing autism "epidemic."

On Sunday, RFK Jr. sat for an interview on The Cats Roundtable radio show.

In the interview, he argued that there is an "epidemic" going on, as healthy children are allegedly "[being injured] very early in life"

"It dwarfs the COVID epidemic and the impacts on our country because COVID killed old people," he said.

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Kennedy, who is a well-known anti-vaxxer, went on to say that currently one in 31 Americans are diagnosed autistic, and "26% of them have no capacity [to live independently]."

He also claimed it would cost the US economy $1 trillion by the year 2035, though he did not cite where he got that figure.

"It's absolutely debilitating for them, their families, their communities, and for our county – just the pure economic cost of autism," he added.

While experts have not discovered a direct cause of autism, many believe there is a mix of both environmental and genetic factors that contribute to it. Kennedy and other anti-vaxxers have insisted it is a "disease" that is "caught" from external factors, such as vaccines and chemicals in food.

Though RFK Jr. promised he wouldn't get rid of vaccines when President Donald Trump appointed him to lead the HHS, his remarks in recent weeks have ruffled some feathers. Last week, he received heavy backlash after he shared conspiracy theories and made questionably disparaging remarks about autistic children during a press conference.

"These are kids who will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted," RFK Jr. told a room full of reporters.

Kennedy recently announced that he has launched his own effort to find the causes of autism, and has promised that the world will know by September.