18 States Declare April Autism Awareness Month!/ Aut. Parents Hit By Abuse Claims

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FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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April 4, 2001 Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp

Also: * Autism Parents Hit By Abuse Claims

* Mercury in the New Jersey Pregnant Population

* The Power of ONE! Rally Update

Eighteen States Declare April Autism Awareness Month!

Unlocking Autism State Representatives around the country have been

working

overtime to have the Governor of each state officially declare

April 27th as Autism Awareness Day!

and

April as Autism Awareness Month!

They are also working on a media push in each state to connect state

activities to The Power of ONE! Rally being held in Washington, DC on April

27, 2001.

We are proud to announce that the following states have signed

proclamations from their Governors and sincerely thank the individuals who

have worked so hard to accomplish this. It is our goal that each state in

the union will officially recognize the month and day this year.

Alabama - Wilborn

Connecticut - Louise Young

Delaware -

Florida - Manon Passino, Ocampo & Holly Bortfeld

Indiana - le Burton-Sarkine

Iowa - Lynnice Wedewer

Kansas - Welsh

Louisiana - Tara Parrish

land - s

New Hampshire - Dawn O'Neil

New Mexico - Suzanne Lefebre-Biehl

New York -

Ohio - Donna Carver

Rhode Island - Dyl

Utah - Duffield and Bradley Goffe

Virginia - Lassiter

In addition to the work of the UA State Representatives, the North

Carolina Chapter of ASA and the Kentucky Autism Resource Center have

received proclamations designating the month of April as Autism Awareness

Month.

Help us with the costs of the national rally in DC and raise

awareness at the same time.

Purchase the NEW! Unlocking Autism Power of ONE! t-shirt.

Wear your shirt wherever your are on April 27th, 2001 in honor of

people and families living with autism all across the United States.

Visit our website at www.unlockingautism.org.

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Autism Parents Hit By Abuse Claims

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010403/79/bhy65.html

Doctors and social workers are mistaking genuine symptoms of autism

for signs of parental abuse, claim researchers.

Many parents are told they may have Munchausen's Disease by Proxy -

the condition in which a parent may invent fictitious illnesses for a child,

or even harm them, to draw attention to themselves - it is claimed.

The suggestion has outraged autism campaigners, who say that too many

parents are being wrongly labelled as abusers.

An autism conference in Durham on Wednesday will be told that autism

cases may have risen tenfold in the past decade.

But other researchers are also pointing to a sharp rise in the number

of potentially-autistic children placed on the Child Protection Register.

Psychologist Blakemore-Brown told BBC News Online that while

genuine Munchausen's was extremely rare, the condition was a " moveable

feast " - easy to use as an explanation in a variety of different

circumstances.

She said: " I believe it could be a growing epidemic. Certainly there

has been a huge rise in the number of Munchausen's cases recorded in the

Child Protection Register.

" Some of these must have been taken away from their parents and put

into care.

" Any kind of behavioural syndrome like autism, where there are

features such as gaze aversion or poor social interaction, can be

interpreted as abuse by some people. " Rashes or fits While autistic children

often share certain characteristics, such as an inability to relate to

others or understand how they are feeling, individual children with the

condition can display different symptoms, such as rashes, or fits.

Dr Judith Gould, director of The Centre for Social and Communication

Disorders, agrees that lack of experience among professionals can lead to

parents being labelled instead of their children correctly diagnosed.

In an article published in 1998, she wrote: " Some parents have had

very distressing encounters with paediatricians or child psychiatrists and

feel they have been dropped into a nightmare scenario written by Kafka.

" Instead of the sympathetic and helpful reaction they expected from

the professional they consulted, they, usually the mothers, find they are

being accused of having invented or deliberately caused their child's

problems in order to gain attention. " Shattock, from the Autism

Research Centre in Sunderland, said: " Munchausen's by Proxy is a very trendy

condition at the moment, and some people are being over-zealous in labelling

people with it.

" And when a label like that goes onto someone's file, they are stuck

with it forever. " He is presenting research, first aired earlier this year,

which supports the idea that the number of recognised autism cases have

risen substantially over the past decade.

His figures, in common with others from separate research projects,

suggest a tenfold rise over that period.

Experts point to the increased awareness of the condition among both

parents and physicians for at least part of that rise.

However, Mr Shattock said that other environmental factors could not

be ruled out.

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Mercury in the New Jersey Pregnant Population: Study Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11256856 & dopt=Abstract <--- address ends here.

Mercury and methylmercury exposure in the New Jersey pregnant population.

1: Arch Environ Health 2001 Jan-Feb;56(1):4-10

Stern AH, Gochfeld M, Weisel C, Burger J

Division of Science, Research and Technology, New Jersey Department of

Environmental Protection, Trenton 08625-0409, USA.

Methylmercury is a known fetal developmental neurotoxicant. The only

significant source of fetal exposure is maternal fish consumption; however,

few recent data on exposure of the pregnant population are available.

The authors undertook a study of methylmercury exposure in the New

Jersey pregnant population to investigate the distribution of exposure and

to identify predictors of elevated exposure. Mainly first-trimester pregnant

women were recruited through six New Jersey obstetric practices. Hair and

blood samples were analyzed for total mercury, and a subset was analyzed for

methylmercury.

A questionnaire on demographics, life style, and fish-consumption

practices was also administered. Although 85-90% of the pregnant population

had hair mercury levels that were less than 1.0 microg/gm, 1-2% had levels

in a range of possible concern for adverse developmental effects (> 4.0

microg/gm). Regression analysis suggested that blacks and individuals with

some college education experienced lower exposures to methyl mercury.

PMID: 11256856

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The Power of ONE! Rally Update

At noon on Friday, April 27th, in Washington, D.C. at the base of the

Capitol Building on the west side, the national rally for autism awareness,

following the theme of " The Power of ONE! " will kick off. Unlocking Autism

has invited speakers from a variety of groups, speakers with autism, parents

of children with autism and political officials. H.E.A.R.T. (Help Elevate

Autism Research Today) will perform their song " Hear My Silence " for the

crowd. With tons of surprises thrown in to keep the crowd on their toes,

the rally will be an exciting, uplifting experience that you just can't

afford to miss!

See you there!

Rally Agenda (Subject to change)

12:00 Reynolds & Cale - Unlocking Autism

12:15 Shore - Unlocking Autism

12:30 Bernie Rimland - Autism Research Institute

12:45 Audrey Horne - Autism Society of America

1:00 le Burton-Sarkine/Francine Young - HEART (Musical

Performance of Hear My Silence)

1:15 Guarino - Autism Society of America Foundation/Cycle USA

1:30 Stuart Spielman & Emken - Cure Autism Now

1:45 , Ph.D. - National Alliance for Autism Research

2:00 Rick Rollens - MIND Institute

2:15 Barbara Loe Fisher - National Vaccine Information Center

2:30 United States Cong. - New Jersey, District 4

2:45 United States Cong. Jim Greenwood - Pennsylvania, District 8

3:00 Hancherick - Musical Performance & Phil Ehart from

the band: Kansas

3:15 Bill , Parent of a child with autism and author

3:30 Lenny Schafer - F.E.A.T. Daily Newsletter

3:45 Ray Gallup, Autism Autoimmunity Project

4:00 Jerry Silbert, Father of a Child with Autism

4:15 Sherry A. Moyer - Asperger's Syndrome Coalition of the U.S.

4:30 Leila Marie Shirley

4:45 Karyn Seroussi - Autism Network for Dietary Intervention

5:00 Dr. Andy Wakefield/ Sawyer - Medical Interventions for

Autism

5:15 Lyn Redwood - SAFE Minds/Sallie Bernard - Cure Autism Now

5:30 Baumann - NYFAC / Bird - The Bird

Charitable Foundation

If you can't be in DC to support the rally in person show your suppot

for April 27th as Autism Awareness Day by purchasing one of Unlocking

Autism's Power of ONE! T-shirts at www.unlockingautism.org.

T-shirts ordered by midnight on April 15th will be received by April

27th. Orders after April 15th are not guaranteed to arrive prior to that

date.

For more information on the Open Your Eyes Picture Project, The Power

of ONE! Rally or how to register for The Power of ONE! Conference, visit our

website at www.unlockingautism.org.

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