Episode 43: Who The Hell Is Steering This Profession? (With The ABA Accountability Project)

The multi-billion-dollar corporate takeover of autism services has officially reached its breaking point. Over the last decade, we have watched private equity firms dump massive capital into the industry, swallowing up small community providers and mass-producing cookie-cutter clinic networks. Somewhere along the line, trade associations and self-appointed accreditation programs stepped behind closed doors and declared themselves the official voice of our science.But nobody asked the practitioners on the ground for a vote.In this explosive episode of Rad N Bad, Sean and Mike strip away the corporate marketing jargon to answer a simple, glaring question: Who the hell is actually driving this field? Joining the studio are Kirsten Hall and Aaron Gold, founders of the ABA Accountability Project, an organization dedicating itself to tracking power, governance, and transparency inside Applied Behavior Analysis.Together, they drop the ultimate "Umpire Analogy"—dissecting the massive conflict of interest where the same entities creating clinical standards are financially tied to the monopolies inspecting them, all while lobbying insurance payers to make those very inspections mandatory. They take a hard, behavior-analytic lens to the dangerous reality of corporate lobbying groups fighting against mandatory frontline RBT credentials under the guise of "improving access to care."This isn't a simple personal vendetta; it's a structural evaluation of an industry that treats kids like products and clinical decision-making like an asset portfolio. If you are an independent provider, a clinician drowning under corporate caseload targets, or a parent fighting for quality over volume, this episode is a blueprint for grassroots reform.Buckle up. Strong sciences don't fear questions—they invite them.