Washington DC - President Donald Trump recently shared his dismay over rising cases of autism and posed a bizarre theory on what he believes is causing it.

On Thursday, Trump and his Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert  F. Kennedy  Jr. held a press conference following the release of the agency's Make America Healthy Again commission report, during which he vaguely suggested a new threat is causing autism rates to rise.

"When you hear... it was 1 in 10,000, and now it's 1 in 31 for autism, I think that's just a terrible thing," Trump said.

He then vaguely suggested the pharmaceutical and food industries may play a role, arguing, "It has to be something on the outside, has to be artificially induced – has to be."

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"We will not allow our public health system to be captured by the very industries it's supposed to oversee. So we're demanding the answers, the public is demanding the answers, and that's why we're here," Trump added.

The report from Kennedy, a well-known anti-vaccine advocate, outlines four contributions to childhood illness: ultra-processed foods, environmental toxins, sedentary lifestyles, and excessive use of prescription drugs. It also revives a widely debunked theory that chronic childhood diseases are linked to vaccines, which has been thoroughly discredited by countless studies.

Nonetheless, Kennedy has ordered the National Institutes of Health to probe the causes of autism and has vowed to have an answer by September.