Inside FDA, career staffers describe how political pressure is influencing their work

^{"Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Legends Event Center in Phoenix, Arizona." by Gage Skidmore licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0}

WASHINGTON — The inquiry came in August, and struck scientists at the Food and Drug Administration as highly unusual. 

The leader of the center that regulates prescription medicines wanted to know what they thought about leucovorin, a generic drug that’s mainly used to alleviate side effects of cancer therapies. He’d seen some promising studies and thought the agency could find a way to approve it as an autism treatment. 

Autism, with its broad spectrum of symptoms, is one of the most challenging conditions to treat with medication. For the FDA itself to push for such a significant change to a drug’s label, and based on a handful of small studies — it would be unheard of, officials told STAT.

The request would have seemed completely random if not for health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s longstanding interest in autism. In April, Kennedy announced his intention to identify autism’s root cause by...