NIH director pushes back timeline for RFK Jr.'s autism answers

The head of the National Institutes of Health now says it could take until next year to get preliminary results from their new studies into autism, marking the latest delay to findings that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had promised by September.

"We're going to get hopefully grants out the door by the end of the summer," NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told reporters Tuesday. "And people will get to work. We'll have a major conference, with updates, within the next year." 

Bhattacharya said it should still be considered "a very rapid study by NIH's normal standards," saying that the institute was working to "cut the red tape without cutting the rigor" in launching their new research grants.