NIH Harvests Commercial Databases For Autism Study

CBS News reports:

The National Institutes of Health is amassing private medical records from a number of federal and commercial databases to give to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new effort to study autism, the NIH’s top official said Monday.

The new data will allow external researchers picked for Kennedy’s autism studies to study “comprehensive” patient data with “broad coverage” of the U.S. population for the first time, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said.

Medication records from pharmacy chains, lab testing and genomics data from patients treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, claims from private insurers and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers will all be linked together, he said.

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Screw consent & HIPAA, NIH is amassing private medical records from a number of federal and commercial databases to give to RFK Jr.’s new effort to study autism https://t.co/x7cGMcQUY3

— Channa Prakash (@AgBioWorld) April 22, 2025