Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has signed an executive order protecting the privacy of autism-related health data. The Democrat signed the order last week in response to a plan announced by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to link data on health research maintained by the National Institutes of Health and claims to Medicaid and Medicare to determine the cause of autism, a brain disorder that scientists have said has genetic roots. Kennedy said the study will not violate privacy. But Pritzker says he wants to preserve “dignity, privacy, and the freedom to live without fear of surveillance or discrimination.”