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NDTV
15-05-2025
- Health
- NDTV
How Much Water Should You Consume Daily In Summers
As temperatures soar during Indian summers, staying hydrated becomes not just a wellness tip, but a necessity. Dehydration in hot weather can lead to fatigue, headaches, heat strokes, and serious electrolyte imbalances. While the general recommendation by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine suggests around 3.7 litres for men and 2.7 litres for women per day, these numbers can vary depending on age, activity level, and climate. In India's sweltering summer heat, water loss through sweating increases, and your hydration needs spike significantly. So how much is enough? Let's dive into smart hydration tips and how to tailor your intake. Children and seniors are more vulnerable to dehydration due to lower fluid reserves and reduced thirst sensitivity. Offer water-rich foods, encourage frequent sips, and watch for signs like dry mouth, low energy, or confusion. Always ensure they're well-hydrated before outdoor activities. Why hydration is crucial in summer Sweating is your body's natural way to cool down, but it also leads to substantial water and salt loss. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), even mild dehydration can impair mood, memory, and performance. In peak summer months, drinking more than the regular water quota becomes essential to prevent heat-related illnesses and keep your bodily functions operating efficiently. 1. Follow the '8x8' rule The classic rule of drinking eight 8-ounce glasses (roughly 2 litres) is a minimum baseline. In summer, add at least 1-1.5 litres more, especially if you are outdoors or physically active. 2. Watch your sweat rate and activity levels If you're working out, walking long distances, or spending time in the sun, you may lose up to 1-2 litres of water per hour. Adjust your intake accordingly, sipping water every 15-20 minutes. 3. Eat your water Foods like watermelon, cucumber, tomatoes, muskmelon, oranges, and spinach have high water content. Adding them to your daily meals not only boosts hydration but also provides essential electrolytes. 4. Start your day with a glass of water You lose water while sleeping, even without realising it. Drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning can jumpstart your metabolism and compensate for overnight fluid loss. 5. Don't wait until you're thirsty Thirst is a late indicator of dehydration. Keep sipping water throughout the day, even when you're indoors. Carrying a reusable water bottle helps as a visual reminder. 6. Keep an eye on your urine colour A simple hydration check: if your urine is pale yellow, you're likely well-hydrated. Dark yellow or amber urine suggests dehydration. 7. Avoid diuretics and sugary beverages Tea, coffee, alcohol, and soda can dehydrate you further. If consumed, balance them with water. Opt for lemon water, coconut water, or diluted buttermilk instead. 8. Replenish with electrolytes Sweating not only depletes water but also sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Natural options like coconut water, lemon-salt water, or oral rehydration solutions (ORS) can help restore balance. Your daily water needs spike in the summer, especially in India's extreme heat. Listening to your body, staying consistent with fluid intake, and opting for natural hydrating foods can go a long way. Adequate hydration supports your heart, kidneys, brain, and skin. So keep that water bottle handy and sip smart, your body will thank you for it. Disclaimer: This content including advice provides generic information only. It is in no way a substitute for a qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your own doctor for more information. NDTV does not claim responsibility for this information.
Scientific American
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Scientific American
Here's What Einstein Would Tell Trump
Germany was once a beacon of science. On January 31, 1933, that all changed, when Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany. In early April of that year, he had dismissed nearly all of the Jewish professors and students in Germany. Nazis publicly burned books written by Jewish authors and others perceived as enemies of the regime. Personal loyalty to Hitler and Nazism became more valuable than professionalism and talent. America saved from Hitler many top European scholars. One of them, Albert Einstein, authored the general theory of relativity, which explained how mass and radiation warp space and time to produce gravity. He had also felt the weight of the warped politics of his time, facing official derision in Germany, where physicists either denied or downplayed that his physics worked. Nazi publications denounced relativity as 'Jewish Physics' and contrasted it to the 'German Physics' of the Third Reich. The great majority of German physicists rejected the theory of relativity as 'Jewish.' Werner Heisenberg, who was a rare exception in teaching Einstein's view of physics and labeled a 'white Jew' for it, asked none other than Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler for protection in a July 21, 1937, letter. A year to the day later, on July 21, 1938, Himmler granted the protection, allowing Heisenberg to teach relativity theory. But he added a cautionary note about citing Einstein: 'I do find it appropriate, though, that in the future you separate clearly for your students acknowledgement of scientific research results from the scientist's personal and political views.' Einstein's example today has much to offer us in the U.S., as scientists once more confront a political administration bent on bending science and scientists to its will. For instance, the attacks on Einstein's physics feel uncomfortably close to ones today on climate science, derided in April for 'exaggerated and implausible climate threats' by the Trump administration's Department of Commerce, even as Earth's atmosphere has continued warming. In late March nearly 2,000 members of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine protested the Trump administration's attacks on science. 'We all benefit from sciences, and we all stand to lose if the nation's research enterprise is destroyed,' they warned. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Einstein stands apart from the views of too many today in speaking out against real threats from a political regime. Many of my fellow scholars want from the government just one thing: to be left alone to do their labor of love. The price for that is to keep their discontent to themselves, hoping that a closed mouth catches no flies. An Einstein contemporary, the celebrated Dutch mathematician Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer, disagreed with this conformist view of the majority, which held that mathematical theorems are all that matters, as it ignored correct credits to their authors and moral foundations of the profession. In a February 24, 1929, letter to Austrian mathematician Hans Hahn, Brouwer wrote that 'it is my opinion that the tiniest moral matter is more important than all of science, and that one can only maintain the moral quality of the world, by standing up to any immoral project.' Einstein was one of the first public critics of the Nazi regime, which he never ceased to criticize. Today his powerful stance may appear natural and uncontroversial. It was different then. Abraham Flexner, founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., described in a September 28, 1933, letter to New York philanthropist Felix M. Warburg his pressure on Einstein to stop criticizing the new Nazi regime: Last night Professor Lefschetz, who holds the highest professorship in mathematics in Princeton University and is himself a Russian Jew, came to see me and asked me if I could not in some way shut Einstein up, that he was doing the Jewish cause in Germany nothing but harm and that he is also seriously damaging his own reputation as a scientist and doing the Jewish situation in America no good. Flexner continued: 'I may add for your private information that I am seriously concerned as to whether it is going to be possible to keep him and his wife in this country.' In a June 26, 1933, letter, Nobel laureate physicist Max von Laue urged his friend Einstein to abstain from politics: 'Here they are making nearly the entirety of German academics responsible when you do something political.' Einstein summed up his position in his reply to von Laue. His words called on scholars to leave the ivory tower and assume responsibility for affairs of the world, to be counted in the struggle for truth and justice: I do not share your view that the scientist should observe silence in political matters, i.e., human affairs in the broader sense.... Does not such restraint signify a lack of responsibility? Where would we be had men like Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Voltaire, and Humboldt thought and behaved in such a fashion? I do not regret one word of what I have said and am of the belief that my actions have served mankind. Some of the European scholars saved by America returned to Europe after the war. They thought that America was a wasteland of culture. It was not. But now that the Trump administration has been firing thousands of scientists and cutting funding for scientific research, America is in danger of becoming a wasteland of culture and science indeed. What would Einstein tell Trump today? Einstein would urge Trump to strive for high morality in his actions, as the scientist so eloquently presented in a 1950 letter to a minister in Brooklyn, N.Y.: The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. Rather than warping American ethics, as well as science, the Trump administration should heed that wisdom, and those of scientists protesting today. Warping science to conform to one's politics will not change reality and will only ruin the nation that embarks on this folly.
The National
25-04-2025
- Health
- The National
Abu Dhabi returns to the spotlight to drive the future of global health
The UAE capital has again put itself front and centre of the international healthcare revolution with a successful second Abu Dhabi Global Health Week. Across three days, sector leaders from around the world travelled to Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre for a dynamic event that hosted crucial conversations and initiated collaborations to deliver equitable healthcare excellence, held under the patronage of Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. Last week's gathering built on the 'surpassed expectations' success of 2024's inaugural event and further underlined the city's importance on the world stage as a leading voice in the mission to advance health and wellbeing. Under the theme, Towards Longevity, Redefining Health and Wellbeing, ADGHW brought together ministers, health leaders, policymakers, innovators, and investors from many nations. The event resulted in the signing of the 'Declaration on Longevity and Precision Medicine' marking a historic milestone in the quest to transform healthcare delivery and research worldwide. The declaration outlined bold commitments to advance longevity science, artificial intelligence, driven diagnostics, and personalised therapeutics. It set forth six key pillars to advance research, innovation, collaboration and knowledge-sharing alongside investment in education and workforce development. By advocating for supportive policy and regulation, upholding ethics and responsible practices and engaging the public, longevity research is expected to have significant implications for health and society. In addition, as part of Abu Dhabi's recently launched Health, Endurance, Longevity, and Medicine (Helm) cluster - a pioneering hub for biotechnology, MedTech and digital health innovation - DoH and the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (Adio) signed a memorandum of understand with Masdar City at ADGHW for the establishment of health and life sciences laboratories to foster a thriving ecosystem for researchers and entrepreneurs. Building on the 2024 dialogue programme, the latest health week saw critical conversations on health system sustainability, longevity science, and the power of AI and biomedical advances. Innovation was again central to an agenda that ranged from live pitch sessions and the bold activations in the Startup Zone to the immersive experiences of the Gym of the Future. The ADGHW Innovation Awards celebrated groundbreaking breakthroughs, as the energy of the exhibition stands and in the discussion halls, thought leadership sessions delivered insightful dialogue, transformative ideas, and proactive engagement. Central to the potency of ADGHW as a crucible for progressive ideas, high-level panel sessions explored the intersection of AI and health system sustainability, while the live stage hosted forward-thinking discussions on the future of healthcare delivery and cross-sector collaboration. Elsewhere, interactive showcases highlighted innovations in longevity, digital health, and life sciences, underlining the commitment of ADGHW to shape the future of global health. The three-day event also saw the signing of several key deals. These included a DoH Memorandum of Understanding with the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, which will advance healthcare resilience and sustainability in Abu Dhabi. The collaboration aims to establish integrated healthcare frameworks between the two bodies, ensuring the delivery of high-quality care amid crises such as Covid, while strengthening emergency response mechanisms. The partnership will also facilitate knowledge exchange, stakeholder coordination, and innovation in critical healthcare decision-making, further solidifying Abu Dhabi's role as a global leader in sustainable healthcare solutions. The DOH also announced a dual MoU with global biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, signed on the sidelines of ADGHW. As part of the agreement, both parties aim to broaden collaboration in clinical research, advanced therapies and healthcare accessibility, while also enhancing treatment options and driving cutting-edge medical innovation in the emirate. DoH signed a further five 'pioneering' MoUs with leading Russian health and technology institutions, the culmination of an earlier strategic DoH delegation visit to Russia, to further strengthen robust bilateral healthcare partnerships between nations. DoH and ADIO also signed a MoU with Unilabs Pharma Solutions - a subsidiary of the international provider of diagnostic services, Unilabs - under which the parties aim to develop a state-of-the-art analytical laboratory as part of the Helm cluster. And an MoU signed by DoH and Adio with global biopharmaceutical leader GSK, in the presence of Sir Jonathan Symonds, chairman of GSK and Badr Al-Olama, director general of Abu Dhabi Investment Office, will bring collaboration on a Multiomics Research Institute in Abu Dhabi. This aims to accelerate oncology-focused genomic science and precision medicine, enhancing diversification and global representation in genomic research to improve cancer patient outcomes. This follows from GSK's announcement last year to develop a regional vaccine distribution centre in Abu Dhabi. The centre was created to meet rising demand for GSK vaccines in the region, Near-East and South Asian countries. Finally, the DoH, in partnership with PureHealth, Khalifa University of Technology, Illumina, M42, Institute for Healthier Living Abu Dhabi and New York University Abu Dhabi, signed a landmark agreement to establish a collaborative framework that will shape the future of healthcare through precision medicine and advanced therapies. Overall, ADGHW brought together healthcare leaders, policymakers, stakeholders and disruptors from across the planet. And the voices of those shaping global health in numerous territories were amplified through keynote speeches and live panel sessions that offered the chance to address major challenges and opportunities in creating a global, sustainable and resilient healthcare network. A robust strategic conference agenda focused on four core themes. These were designed to drive meaningful change through collaborative dialogue and interactions that could foster the formation of strategic partnerships to strengthen healthcare systems worldwide, ensuring lasting impact across communities and borders long after ADGHW closed. The themes were Longevity and Precision Health: Personalising the Future of Medicine; Health System Resilience & Sustainability: Crafting Future-Ready Frameworks; Digital Health & AI: Revolutionising Care Through Technology; and Investment in Life Sciences: Driving Global Innovation Forward. Ibrahim Al Jallaf, executive director of digital health at the Department of Health Abu Dhabi, described ADGHW as an opportunity to 'spark partnerships … to spark conversations between experts and people practising in the field' that perhaps haven't been able to have such conversations before. With 15,000 attendees from 90 nations, and a programme hosting 200 visionary speakers, 1,900 conference delegates and 150 'pioneering' exhibitors, ADGHW again proved to be a prime date on the world healthcare calendar, further establishing Abu Dhabi as a global health and wellness hub. 'The UAE has always been very well positioned for connecting the globe,' said Mr Al Jallaf. 'Looking now at Abu Dhabi Global Health Week, we're connecting leading experts, bringing success cases and innovations from their home countries, and having conversations here.' He said he was even more excited by the 2025 edition of ADGHW as it welcomed an even larger presence of global leaders, which in turn 'creates opportunities for even greater and more global ideas'. 'The real value here is we are able to have conversations between global experts that spark new ideas, that result in projects," Mr Al Jallaf said. 'What ideas will have come out of Abu Dhabi Global Health Week 2025, and what kind of impact are we going to see over the next year?'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Brain Drain: Scientists Are Fleeing the U.S. as Trump Cuts Funding
America has stood as a world superpower for the past century or so, and much of that power has been derived from the country's scientific and technological prowess. From medicine to aerospace, some of the greatest thinkers in modern history have called the United States their home and pushed boundaries while residing within its borders. That tradition is under threat in ways it has never been before as Donald Trump's administration engages in the mass firing of scientists in the federal government, cuts funding to scientific research, and generally pushes an agenda that opposes scientific inquiry. The Trump administration has thrown out hundreds of National Institutes of Health (NIH) research projects, fired thousands of the agency's scientists, and looks intent on further dismantling the agency. Research funding for universities is also being stripped. So is climate science. Science is under attack in the United States basically everywhere you look. Trump's attacks on science are making American scientists anxious, and many are considering leaving the country indefinitely. Nearly 2,000 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine signed a letter in March warning of the administration's threat to science. A poll from the international science journal Nature in late March found that 75 percent of American scientists are considering leaving the United States. European countries are planning on increasing their science funding, and countries like France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have launched programs to lure American scientists. Jan Danckaert, rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, says his university has launched its own program to attract American scientists. 'Our university is establishing a dedicated contact point for researchers who want to continue their work in Brussels,' Danckaert tells Rolling Stone. 'U.S. universities and their scholars are victims of political and ideological interference by the Trump administration. They are seeing millions of dollars in research funding being abruptly cut for ideological reasons.' In France, Aix-Marseille University has received nearly 300 applications from Americans for its 'Safe Place for Science' program. Europe saw many scientists flee for the U.S. during World War II, and it now appears that experts are starting to flow in the opposite direction. 'I never thought I would live in a country where I would see scientists basically seeking asylum,' says Jennifer Jones, director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists. 'Some are seeking asylum because their work is no longer valued or funded. Some just don't see the future of their career here.' Jones says she's heard from scientists who are 'actively looking for positions overseas,' and that these scientists are often at the beginning or end of their career. Those who are just starting out can easily relocate, and some who are at the tail end of their career might want to finish it off somewhere else. Many scientists are also from outside of the U.S. and are considering returning home. 'If we lose elements of both generations, that's so hard. You're losing the most senior, deep level of expertise,' Jones says. 'They're also the ones who mentor and train the next generation. When you lose early career folks, you lose capacity that could take years or decades to regain.' Adam Siepel, a computational biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, says he's been seriously considering moving to Europe or Canada. He says the atmosphere in America is 'very spooky' right now and 'almost reminiscent of Nazi Germany or the Cultural Revolution in China.' He says a lot of scientists are worried about the future. 'You start to wonder if it's going to be possible to do science in this country, and if there is a major flow of scientists to other countries, where should we go?' Siepel says. 'I'm not ready to leave the United States yet, but I think we're all keeping our eyes open and looking for our options if things do turn out really badly.' Dr. Stephen Jones, a biochemist who now works at Vilnius University in Lithuania, started considering leaving the U.S. during the 2020 presidential election while he was finishing his postdoc at the University of Texas. He and his wife weren't sure how the election was going to turn out, but there was a lot of anti-science sentiment during the Covid-19 pandemic and Europe looked appealing. Even though Trump didn't win that election, they decided to leave. 'You know what I don't have to experience right now? I haven't had to kick any students or any researchers off my team. My funding is more secure than ever,' Jones says. 'I have a friend who had to start a GoFundMe to keep her laboratory going [in America]. I'm not thinking about those things.' Jones says he's advised other scientists on how to exit the U.S. for Europe. He says he was not having those meetings 'before January of this year.' He also just welcomed an American researcher to his team who recently completed his PhD. Some European scientists who were considering moving to the U.S. for work have told him they're no longer considering that option. 'It's going to become, and it's already becoming, a brain drain,' Jones says. 'It's the kind of thing you don't see immediately. This takes time to manifest itself — sometimes because it has to get bad enough for people to decide to finally go somewhere else.' America's brain drain hasn't just affected scientists. Jason Stanley, a former Yale philosophy professor, expert on authoritarianism and author of How Fascism Works, decided to take a job at the University of Toronto earlier this year. He said he feared the U.S. was at risk of becoming a 'fascist dictatorship' under Trump. (Surely there's no reason to worry about a fascism expert deciding to pack his bags and flee the country.) The Trump administration claims to want to reduce government spending, but if that's part of its rationalization for gutting the sciences, then it's not behaving logically. Investing in basic science often generates more money than it costs. 'Every dollar spent on NIH research results in about $2.50 worth of economic growth,' Siepel says. 'I think around 90 percent of FDA-approved new drugs started out with NIH support.' All of the scientists aren't going to leave at once, and so far it's only a trickle exiting the U.S., but it's clear that the future of science is in question in America. If things continue on the path they're on, more and more scientists will decide to work elsewhere. This will make the U.S. less competitive and deprive it of important innovations. 'It's a lot easier to break things than to build them. Unfortunately, we're in the breaking phase right now,' Dr. Jones says. 'The building materials are being used elsewhere in the world now.' More from Rolling Stone Trump-Appointed Judge Orders Return of Another Wrongfully Deported Man Harvard's President 'Will Not Compromise' in Fight Against Trump Trump Rewards Top Meme Coin Investors With Access at Private Dinner Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
The Guardian
20-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
RFK's claims about people with autism offer a sinister insight into how Trumpism sees us all
In the recent past, Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that Donald Trump is 'a terrible human being' and 'probably a sociopath'. But in the US's new age of irrationalism and chaos, these two men are now of one voice, pursuing a strand of Trumpist politics that sometimes feels strangely overlooked. With Trump once again in the White House and Kennedy ensconced as his health and human services secretary, what they are jointly leading is becoming clearer by the day: a war on science and knowledge that aims to replace them with the modern superstitions of conspiracy theory. Nearly 2,000 members of the US's National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have warned of 'slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration'. Even work on cancer is now under threat. But if you want to really understand the Trump regime's monstrousness, consider where Kennedy and a gang of acolytes are heading on an issue that goes to the heart of millions of lives: autism. Last Wednesday, Kennedy spoke at a press conference staged in response to a report about apparently rising rates of autism published by the US's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And out it all came: an insistence that autism is an 'epidemic' and a 'preventable disease', and – in complete defiance of the science – that the root cause lies with 'environmental toxins'. A range of new studies, he said, will begin reporting back in September: with the same banality that defines his boss's promises on international conflict and global economics, he told his audience that answers would be presented to the public 'very, very quickly'. Most of the people present would have been aware of Kennedy's past support for the thoroughly discredited idea that autism is somehow linked to the use of vaccines. As he spoke, they were presumably reminded of the occasions when he has talked about autistic people with a mixture of disgust and complete ignorance. Autism, he said, 'destroys' families; today's autistic children 'will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.' Those comments have rightly triggered a huge backlash. But what has been rather lacking is a broader critique of Kennedy's ideas, and how they go deep into aspects of the US's culture and politics. As I explain in the book I have just written about my autistic son, James, I began my immersion in autism and the arguments that swirl around it 15 years ago, when he received his diagnosis from the NHS. That came amid visits from speech therapists and educational psychologists, and increasingly futile appointments with a paediatrician, who in effect told us to go away and manage as best we could. But straight away, I was also aware of a much more exotic subculture rooted in the US, based around the idea that autism could somehow be cured, and an array of regimens and pseudo-treatments. The anxieties surrounding Andrew Wakefield's disgraced work on a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab were still easy to pick up. I read about 'chelation': injecting chemicals into the bloodstream, supposedly to remove the toxic preservatives used in vaccines from the body and send autism on its way. It was easy to find stuff about impossibly restrictive diets, and the terrifying notion of forcing people to drink diluted bleach. These ideas, moreover, came with claims of endless government cover-ups: proto-Maga stuff, which had long been snowballing online. That said, the underlying logic of all this quackery was encouraged by much more mainstream voices. By and large, British campaigning and research tends to focus on what autism actually is, and how to make autistic lives better – whereas in the US, very powerful forces have seen autism as a disease. In 2006, President George W Bush signed a legislative package tellingly called the Combating Autism Act, hailed by one of its supporters as 'a federal declaration of war on the epidemic of autism'. At that point, there were initiatives and organisations with names such as Cure Autism Now and Defeat Autism Now! All this had already spawned the autistic self-advocacy movement that continues to loudly contest such ideas, but its appeal obviously still lingers. If I were in the US, I would now have two big worries. As well as constant attacks on the public sector that have already hacked back help for autistic people, there is a huge question about what Kennedy's nonsense might mean for other areas of federal government policy, and the kind of MMR-style panics his 'answers' on toxins might trigger. But some of those concerns also apply to the UK, thanks to the ease with which ideas travel, and how Trump and his allies influence politics across the world. Kennedy's pronouncements are not only about what causes autism; they also reflect an age-old perception of autism as an aberration, and many autistic people as 'ineducable' and beyond help. This surely blurs into populists' loathing of modern ideas about human difference: once you have declared war on diversity, an attack on the idea of neurodiversity will not be far away. It also chimes with one of the new right's most pernicious elements: its constant insistence that everything is actually much simpler than it looks. Which brings me to something it feels painful to have to write. Autism denotes a fantastically complicated set of human traits and qualities, but that does not make them any less real. It presents with and without learning disabilities, and can be synonymous with skills and talents. Its causes (if that is even the right word) are largely genetic, although careful research is focused on how those heritable aspects might sometimes – sometimes– intersect with factors during pregnancy, and with parental age. And obviously, those characterisations barely scratch the surface, which is some indication of the absurdity of Kennedy's position, and how dangerous it is. On this side of the Atlantic, there are very good reasons why many of us who have families with autistic members feel deep anxiety about the constant shunting of politics to the right. The care, education and official understanding of the people we love and sometimes look after is fragile enough already: what would happen if their fate was in the hands of the Trumpist know-nothings of Reform UK, or Alternative für Deutschland? The American tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes shows the future we now have to avoid, and the kind of people we may have to fight, who will not just be arrogant and inhumane, but set on taking us back to a failed past: terrible human beings, you might call them. John Harris is a Guardian columnist. His book Maybe I'm Amazed: A Story Of Love and Connection in 10 Songs is available now
