[Fwd: TOMORROW WASH DC: U.S Senate committee hearing on enviro. causes of autism]

[Guest guest]

fwd fr anne dachel, AoA:

TOMORROW….There will be a U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on the

environmental causes of autism. * It will be at 10 AM EST.* I just

called the majority office and was told that we can view the hearing by

going to the website below and clicking on the red icon that will appear

(which isn’t there now) when the hearing is going on. It will also be

archived online following the hearing.

This is the first I’ve heard of this hearing and if you scroll down it

does sound like they’re finally addressing autism as an epidemic with

environmental causes. We will wait forever before anyone from the

CDC/AAP starts to sound an alarm over autism.

Below that is PR from Rethinking Autism about the impact autism is

having on our schools. Again, there is no logical way to explain this all

**Subcommittee on Children’s Health hearing entitled, " State of Research

on Potential Environmental Health Factors with Autism and Related

Neurodevelopment Disorders. " **

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

10:00 AM EDT

EPW Hearing Room - 406 Dirksen

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing & Hearing_id=1a\

b3cf42-802a-23ad-4a3a-686da83bf6d0

*Senate: 8/3 hearing on environmental causes of

autism <_https://schf.basecamphq.com/P35089549_>

*

_http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing & Hearing_id=1\

ab3cf42-802a-23ad-4a3a-686da83bf6d0

<http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing & Hearing_id=1\

ab3cf42-802a-23ad-4a3a-686da83bf6d0>

_

*Senators to review research on autism's enviro causes

*Environment and Energy Daily

August 2, 2010

Gayathri Vaidyanathan, E & E reporter

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will meet tomorrow to

probe the state of research into the environmental causes of autism and

other neurodevelopment disorders.

The Children's Health Subcommittee will hear from U.S. EPA and National

Institutes of Health officials on the progress of federally funded work

into the causes of autism and other development disorders of the brain.

It is likely that the hearing will be a step toward reauthorizing the

2006 Combating Autism Act, which is set to expire in 2011.

Autism is thought to result from a combination of genetic and

environmental factors. While the interaction of genes and mutations is

somewhat known by now, little work has been done on potential

environmental risk factors. There are likely to be many disparate causes

leading to autism.

*The incidence of autism spectrum disorders, or ASDs, is increasing in

the United States , with one in every 110 children affected. Rates of

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in children are also

rising -- nearly 4.5 million children between 3 and 17 years of age have

it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

*

The subpanel will hear from Isaac Pessah, director of the University of

California , , Children's Center for Environmental Health and

Disease Prevention, which has received $7.5 million from EPA since 2007

for research to investigate possible environmental causes.

UC is working on a project called MARBLES (Markers of Autism Risk

in Babies -- Learning Early Signs) to identify early predictors of

autism, whether genetic, environmental or immunologic. According to the

project proposal submitted to EPA, the project will look at whether

autistic children are differently exposed to metals, pesticides,

polybrominated diphenylethers and other chemicals.

The work is a corollary to a long-term study called CHARGE in which UC

researchers are casting a wide net to catch possible environmental

contributors in a group of 2- to 5-year-old autistic children. They are

screening for pesticides, metals, flame retardant compounds, viruses and

bacteria and pharmaceuticals.

UC and other groups are also receiving money from NIH's National

Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and National Toxicology

Program, and the subcommittee will hear from the program's director,

Birnbaum.

NIH is funding a study together with the nonprofit Autism Speaks that

is enrolling mothers who already have one autistic child and are again

pregnant to study exposures during fetal development.

The annual cost of caring for people with autism is $35 billion,

according to Geraldine Dawson, chief scientific officer at Autism Speaks.

NIH has provided nearly $225 million for research, which Dawsom called

miniscule. The funding comes from the Combating Autism Act, which

authorized $7 billion for autism-related work including screening,

education, intervention and research.

" President Obama has listed autism as one of three health concerns to

be combated in the United States , " Dawson said. " The current act is a

step in the right direction, but due to the magnitude of the public

health challenge that autism presents, we need a great deal more funding. "

*The rate of children with the disease has risen by 600 percent in the

last decade, a number so dramatic it cannot be explained solely by

better diagnosis, Dawson said.

*

*Schedule:* The hearing is tomorrow at 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.

*Witnesses:* Anastas, assistant administrator of the Office of

Research and Development, U.S. EPA; Birnbaum, NIH's director of

the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and National

Toxicology Program; Isaac Pessah, director of the UC Children's

Center for Environmental Health and Disease Prevention; Bruce Lanphear,

senior scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute; and

Moen, parent.

* SEE ARTICLE BELOW: If all the doctors in denial like

Offit and Coplan are right when they say that there's been no real rise

in autism, only an expanded spectrum, better diagnosing........*

*then things like this wouldn't be happening. Autistic kids would go

where autistic kids have always gone. Teachers wouldn't need special

training to teach autistic kids and there certainly wouldn't be any

dramatic cost increase. I'd like to ask Offit and Coplan to explain

what our schools are doing wrong. Did they just ignore hundreds of

thousands of autistic kids in the classroom previous to this? Are those

same kids now the misdiagnosed/undiagnosed adults out there somewhere? *

* *

*But hey, health officials aren't worried. Doctors aren't worried. Why

should anyone else worry right?*

* *

* *

*Anne*

Rethink Autism Helps Schools Serve More Students With Autism Despite

Shrinking Budgets

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rethink-autism-helps-schools-serve-more-\

students-with-autism-despite-shrinking-budgets-99748079.html

//Public school administrators are facing the prospect of deeper budget

cuts in cities and states nationwide. Meanwhile, schools with fewer

resources are challenged to comply with the federal Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees " free appropriate "

education to all disabled students, including the growing number of

students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In addition, parents

are pressuring schools to either comply with the IDEA or face legal

action.//

// " There may be no greater challenge facing public schools today than

the staggering increase in children diagnosed with autism, " writes

///Fran ///(1), a contributing editor at Edutopia.org

<http://edutopia.org/>, a website published by The Lucas

Educational Foundation.//////

/To help school administrators and special education directors address

that challenge, Rethink Autism <http://www.rethinkautism.com/> and

eSchool News are offering a webinar - " How to Serve More Students on the

Autism Spectrum with Shrinking Budgets "

<http://rethinkautism2.eventbrite.com/>* *-* on Wednesday,

August 11, 2010 at 2pm (EDT)/ 1pm (CDT)*. The webinar will show how

schools can save costs (while still providing a quality evidence-based

education for students with autism) by utilizing remote support services

and low-cost web-based technology that offers curriculum planning, staff

training and data tracking & reporting. To learn more or register for

the webinar at no cost, visit http://rethinkautism2.eventbrite.com/./

/An estimated 637,000 children ages 3-17 in the U.S. (or 1 in 91) had a

current ASD diagnosis in 2007, according to a widely accepted study(2)

published in Pediatrics. That represents a 67% increase from a previous

estimate by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM)

Network, which reported autism rates of 66 per 10,000 children (or 1 in

150) in 2002.///