Decades of science have helped us better understand autism and meet autistic individuals where they are. But a few weeks ago, the White House looked at all that human progress and apparently decided to make everyone look away while they attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube. If it was unclear to you whether to be distracted by acetaminophen or childhood vaccines, that was on purpose. Their aim was getting autism back in the headlines for a fresh round of mom-shaming.

Many autism advocates caught on immediately, and some news outlets, such as The 19^th News (Sept. 30, “MAHA frames autism around mother blaming”), are starting to catch up. But as we know, the lies can get pretty far ahead while the truth-tellers are still lacing up their running shoes. We also have been conditioned to believe that mothers can be dangerous to their children’s health. It’s easy imagine, then, that Refrigerator Mother 2.0 may find renewed traction, rolling back the progress we’ve made for autistic individuals and society at large.

The “refrigerator mother” theory dates from 1943, when Leo Kanner wrote his landmark paper on autism. He claimed a lack of maternal warmth created the condition and said that autistic children “were left neatly in refrigerators which did not defrost.” A few years later, Time magazine brought the concept to the masses.

The theory stuck for decades, in part because genetic scientists and other researchers—the truth-tellers—were still putting on their shoes. It’s human nature to blame others when our troubles feel intractable. And blaming mothers has been a long-running cultural tactic. Law professor Linda Fentiman’s recent book, Blaming Mothers: American Law and the Risks to Children’s Health, shows how our supposedly neutral laws actually treat mothers (and those who are pregnant) as risk vectors. Take it from a worn-out mother who’s been blamed plenty for her son’s autism over the decades: shiny new wrappers don’t hide this destructive pattern of human behavior.

However, in the last 40 years, scientists have also given us a stunning amount of knowledge. They are starting to untangle what we need to know about our genes and the environment in relation to autism. More importantly, they are creating the space for autistic individuals to learn and for the rest of us to understand how best to respond. Autism has physical and biological attributes, but the way we respond reveals our social constructs and the way that often limits the options for everyone. Ramps can improve everyone’s mobility. Movies with captions help viewer’s comprehension. Audio cues make busy intersections more comprehensible to us all.

Families love their children and it’s safe to say that they want to meet their responsibility to raise their autistic child as best they can. Those of us that know and understand science, including the science of autism, may well be inoculated against mother-blaming. We owe it to our children, and their children, and our communities to resist the rollout of Refrigerator Mother 2.0 and instead share the scientific understandings that have improved our quality of life.