The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other government agencies are launching a new effort to try to locate missing autistic people, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Aug. 21.
HHS is working with the Department of Justice and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to boost coordination among officials when an autistic person, whether a child or an adult, goes missing.
The agencies plan to release guidance for other authorities so they can use a federal alert system for autism-related disappearances, particularly those involving immediate risk, to enable more consistent and rapid responses, while letting local and state officials decide when to activate the alerts, HHS said in a fact sheet….