What many who see autism-related grief from the outside miss is that this grief is not about the diagnosis itself.

The Health and Human Services secretary defended his claims about children with autism that drew backlash last week, saying he was referring to a quarter of those diagnosed.

Reaction from the autism community has been swift and damning after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s first press conference last week. And many are asking why we're defining an autistic's person's worth at all.