AAP Conference does include Autism - II

[Guest guest]

Hello,

This is from 's list, which is California focused.

Lenny

Hi

Hope all is well with you. Please take a moment to read the email below. & his wife are both local pediatricians (San Diego) who have recently found out their two year old son has autism. I emailed him the AAP Conference email you sent out for his perspective. I thought it was worth sharing. He said I could forward but does not want email from others and thus not to let his email be shown in his response.

Thanks for all you do! Dayna www.autismtreeproject.org

Hi Dayna,

The information in this email is incorrect. It is unfortunate that many parents of autistic children carry such an intense distrust of organizations such as the AAP, CDC and others. I went through the more than 70 page registration program for this conference and there are many opportunities for learning centered around the topic of autism. I stopped counting when I got to about 15 separate conferences.

There is a "meet the expert" afternoon in which I saw 3 separate lectures in a row dealing with the latest advances in the biology of autism, the genetics of autism, and the management of autism. I also saw an interesting one about the identification of the high functioning child with autism and Asperger's. There are also multiple conferences that will undoubtedly have autism mentioned. These are lectures on advocacy for the child with special health care needs and lots of lectures on learning disabilities and management of mental health conditions like anxiety etc. There's also lectures on vaccine safety where the now overwhelming scientific evidence will once again be reviewed that MMR and autism and mercury and autism have nothing to do with one another.

I actually think that autism is quite well represented for a conference that deals with the entire scope of pediatrics. Since this is such a broad conference the subspecialties of pediatric dermatology, cardiology, infectious disease, rheumatology, hematology/oncology, genetics, intensive care, emergency medicine, developmental and behavior all have to be addressed to a certain degree.

The AAP is doing quite a bit of advocacy these days about autism and a visit to their website will demonstrate that. The AAP also sponsors smaller conferences all over the country on more focused topics like autism on a frequent basis. I would also add that the AAP has a 75 year history of advocating for children. They are quite a strong lobbying organization on capitol hill that have succeeded in increasing health care coverage for notch group children (the SCHIP program) and have recently saved thousands of kids by preventing cuts in Medicaid proposed by the Bush administration.

I am not surprised by the level of frustration that some of these parent groups have toward the medical community. After all they have kids with autism like you and I and it is a daily struggle as we know. There are no easy answers or quick fixes out there from the medical community. But I have tried to let that negative stuff go because it doesn't help my son or my family. I know a few people in these organizations (AAP and CDC) and I can attest to their integrity. In my heart I know that these folks can be trusted and that if there is link between autism and mercury or MMR or cheeseburgers that they will let the public know.