A story that circulated online in September 2025 claimed officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Florida's child protective services (CPS) harassed a Florida mother for refusing their offer to send her son to attend an "autism therapy camp" to "cure" him of his autism — a complex developmental disorder that impacts the brain that has no known cure.
According to the story, the CDC went so far as to threaten the mother with a CPS-authorized arrest warrant, leading her, her husband and their five children to flee and hide elsewhere in the U.S., at least until they could gather enough funds via a GoFundMe fundraiser to leave the country to seek better health care.
Snopes readers emailed and searched our website to seek the truth about this matter. For example, one reader emailed, "There is a video on TikTok that claims the Florida CDC & CPS are threatening families if they do not put their autistic children in a special camp." Another reader asked, "Is the CDC creating autism therapy camps in Florida?"
As of our initial publishing of this article on Sept. 10, we had not yet received any credible evidence allowing us to confirm this story. In an attempt to find more information, we contacted by Facebook, Instagram, Substack, TikTok and YouTube a creator publicly identified on the GoFundMe fundraiser page as Christina Hawkins, known to users primarily as her online name, Christina Talks Tea. Hawkins originated the claim as the account of a friend's experience with a video posted on Hawkins' social media accounts. On Sept. 10, Hawkins told us in a TikTok comment she planned to provide information "soon."
Around four hours after we published this article, Hawkins responded to a TikTok private message and provided contact information for a woman named "Jordan," the alleged mother at the center of this story. (We are withholding her full name to protect hers and her family's privacy.) During our Sept. 11 phone interview, Jordan provided many clarifying details and some alleged evidence, including calling into question the way users framed the story in a frightening manner. Mainly, she said she did receive a "voluntary" offer from the CDC for a "work program" — and that the alleged CDC official did repeatedly call, become aggressive and threaten a child protective services arrest warrant — but also that no one ever used the words "autism therapy camp." She added she doesn't think "the government is kidnapping autistic children," and that, "If you hear the whole story, they're not just throwing autistic children in a camp somewhere."
By email, Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — which governs both the CDC and the Administration for Children and Families — said Hawkins' claim was false. We also emailed questions to the Florida Department of Children and Families, which functions as the state's child protective services arm, and contacted the Autism Society of Florida nonprofit organization to ask if their staff received any credible information about the story. We will add any further answers if receive them.
The initial video from Hawkins, whose first Bluesky post (archived) from November 2024 declared her "hate" for President Donald Trump, drew comments from users mentioning HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s remarks and his past positions on autism, including falsely alleging vaccines cause autism. The claim also followed Florida's recent decision to end vaccination mandates in schools, and preceded the Sept. 9 release of Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" strategy report.
Sept. 5: The first video
On Sept. 5, Hawkins posted the first video promoting the claim on Instagram (archived), TikTok and YouTube (archived). Her posts of the clip collectively received over 1 million views. The video displayed the onscreen caption, "Important Tea for parents and families with Autistic children. This is scary and very dangerous."
Other users also shared her video, or the claim itself, on Bluesky (archived), Facebook, Instagram, Threads (archived), TikTok and X. Many commenters expressed sympathy. Meanwhile, other users expressed their skepticism about the entire story.
In the video, Hawkins claimed a "good friend" — the mother of five children living in Florida, including at least one son living with autism — received a call from the CDC asking if she would like her autistic son to participate in a "voluntary program" for eight hours a day to "cure" him of his autism, known as an "autism therapy camp."
According to the claim, the CDC repeatedly called and harassed the mother, and CPS officials also harassed her. Hawkins alleged, "The CDC, or someone supposedly from the CDC, reached out to her and threatened her [and] said that they were going to sign a warrant for her arrest through child protective services." That arrest warrant threat supposedly led the family to flee the state on an "emergency vacation."
Sept. 6: GoFundMe announced, family photo posted
In a
Hawkins also announced a GoFundMe fundraiser to help the mother and her family flee the U.S., including saying she personally donated $100. The GoFundMe page (archived) publicly displayed her name and $100 as the fundraiser's "first donation." The page also identified a man named Caleb Allen of New Castle, Delaware, as the fundraiser's organizer. We did not locate contact details for Allen.
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Sept. 8: Attorney established, 'internet sleuths'
Three days after her first video, Hawkins posted a
Additionally, Hawkins railed against "internet sleuths" who misidentified her alleged friend Caleb Allen as a man of the same name facing weapons charges, leading users to report the GoFundMe fundraiser as a scam. "If you don't believe something on the internet, scroll the f*** on past, because you don't know what you're doing," she said. "And now, they can't access the money that we've donated to them."
In the same video, she said, "I don't get on here and spread false information. That's not what I do." She also added, "I would have never got on here and told that story if it were not true."
As of Sept. 15, the GoFundMe fundraiser displayed $6,480 raised out of a $35,000 goal. The $28,530 needed to reach the goal was much higher than the $3,000 Hawkins said the family needed for airline tickets. She did not mention other needed expenses in the video.
Sept. 9: Hawkins asks users to send her donations directly
On Sept. 9, Hawkins posted a new video that no longer publicly appeared on her account as of Sept. 10, whether because she deleted it or changed its visibility settings. In the video, she recapped the GoFundMe fundraiser's frozen funds story. She also claimed the family had "drained their savings" to hire the attorney, whom they planned to meet with on the same day.
Hawkins, citing the GoFundMe's frozen funds, said users could donate directly to her Cash App, PayPal or Venmo accounts. "Anything that comes in to my Cash App that says 'donation,' I will know is for my friend and her family and her child, and I will promptly send it to her today so she does not have to wait."
This screenshot from the Sept. 9 video, asking for users to send donations directly to Hawkins, no longer publicly appeared on her account as of Sept. 10. (@teatime.with.chris/TikTok)
Days earlier, on Aug. 29, Hawkins posted a pinned Instagram video (archived) providing the same information for her Cash App, PayPal and Venmo accounts, except for donations intended to support her own content creation. The clip also included a mailing address for a P.O. box located in Mobile, Alabama.
Sept. 10: Hawkins claims landlord evicted family for being 'liberals,' addresses journalists
On Sept. 10, Hawkins posted a
She then hinted the family's landlord voted for Trump, without saying the president's name, and claimed the landlord decided to evict the family from their home because "they're liberals."
Hawkins added, "People have reached out to me claiming to be journalists — and they may be journalists, I don't really care — wanting me to divulge more of this story. No. This is all you get to hear until they feel like they are safe enough to tell their story."
Responding to one of our public comments under the video, she said she would share more details "soon."
Sept. 11: Interviewing Jordan, the mother of five
We did not receive any verifiable evidence prior to the publishing of this story on Sept. 10. Around four hours after publishing, Hawkins replied to our TikTok private message and provided the phone number for a woman identifying herself as Jordan, the alleged mother at the center of the story.
Following a Sept. 11 phone interview, Jordan provided to us alleged screenshots of email confirmations for airline tickets to an international destination, passport appointment confirmations, money transfers of users' donations from Hawkins and a doorbell video recording of a DCF official at her home — all evidence lending credibility to the family's story, including plans to leave the U.S.
During our nearly hourlong phone interview, Jordan provided many details, including some we could not credibly confirm. She told us about an incident from May 2025 involving their dog biting one of their children, resulting in the dog being put down. She said the CDC followed up with them by phone to ensure the bitten child did not contract an infectious disease.
She then said the CDC called again in June to offer a "work program," purportedly a "voluntary" offer, for her 5-year-old autistic son, and that she declined. She said the CDC official repeatedly called for quite some time, including with the official becoming aggressive and threatening an arrest warrant involving DCF. According to Jordan, an official from DCF began showing up at her door in late July — leading her to leave her home all day to avoid the interaction. "We were never told that it was a 'therapy camp,'" she said. "We were told that at this 8-hour … we were told that it was like a camp, he would come, it was fun for him, he would learn work skills and then part of that day he would have ABA therapy."
Asking us to withhold some details for privacy and other reasons, Jordan said, candidly, "So I ask, I think what was the … I'm not going to lie to you," then said she did not believe popular videos accurately told her family's story. She said some details became "misconstrued [like] in the game of telephone," and told us other details she did not wish to be made public.
Jordan told us, "I want to be so, so, so clear that we don't think the government is kidnapping autistic children." She also said, "If you hear the whole story, they're not just throwing autistic children in a camp somewhere. They are opening this work program, and I believe that wholeheartedly because I was getting phone calls for it."
Involving the claims of hiring an attorney, Jordan told us they paid a $4,000 retainer fee to a man she identified to us only as Gary, and also said they drained their savings account, as Hawkins said. However, Jordan said they later found information leading them to believe Gary — a person she said she met via TikTok — was "not a legitimate attorney," and that she was unable to reach him by phone after initially meeting with him at their home. Also, she said that her landlord does support Trump, claiming he initially did want to end the family's lease due to their left-leaning political affiliation. She also told us he later decided to let her stay, and chose not to evict the family.
Jordan said, "To be honest, we were leaving the country anyway." She continued, "We started the process of leaving last November," adding, "We have recently decided we just go longer want to be in America" — citing fears of government officials removing children from homes. "[The CDC] told us it was a voluntary thing but there are consequences if I don't do it. That doesn't feel voluntary. It doesn't feel free. It doesn't feel normal."
Jordan also appeared in a lengthy YouTube video on Hawkins' account on Sept. 11, in which she recounted the story told to us during the interview.
Another creator shares alleged firsthand account
After Hawkins posted her initial videos, TikTok creator @raisedbywolves9999 — a user identifying herself as a mother with a daughter, both living with autism — posted two videos, claiming Hawkins' videos helped her recall a July phone call also about "autism therapy camps." According to the user, the person on the other end of the phone became aggressive in the conversation and made vague threats about calling CPS on the mother for refusing the "autism therapy camp" offer.
We asked this user for evidence but she said she could not produce any definitive proof of the phone call as having occurred.
For further reading, in August, we reported about an evidence-free claim that Trump, and the Republican Party, planned to federally act to reduce the age of consent for sexual activity, or the minimum age for marriage, to 14.