Autism research is being delayed. Are you angry yet?

By
Yes!
The Strategic Plan—the document which outlines how the HHS agencies are supposed to conduct autism research in the next few years—has been seriously delayed by repeated attempts to insert vaccine language.

The Plan is basically ready to be finalized. Months later than it should be because, well, people (read: Lyn Redwood) keep monopolizing the time for the meetings to discuss vaccines.

Would you like to see autism research move forward? Would you like to see the Combating Autism Act money actually appropriated and spent? Or, would you like to see future meetings continually monopolized by this one question?

If you are like me, you would like to see good research start. I’ve listed some of the initiatives that are stalled below. Good stuff. If you would like those projects to start sooner rather than later, send an email to Dr. Tom Insel, director of the NIMH and chair of the IACC. Let him know that it’s time for the IACC

I'm almost finished with Autism's False Prophets by Paul Offit. The book details how research and discussion about autism have been hijacked by individuals seeking to make a name for themselves by blaming vaccines for autism. Now we have some of those same characters trying to hijack the government's good faith efforts to research effective treatments and interventions for autistic individuals through out their lives. The government is willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in autism research and these jokers are throwing a monkey wrench into the whole thing because no one wants to waste more time and money investigating a vaccine connection that numerous studies to date have not found? That is some hot ghetto mess right there.



Technorati Tags:, , ,
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

What's in a flower?

By
Specifically hydrangea flowers. In this post I pointed out that anthocyanin (a family of plant pigments) appears blue at high pH, red at low pH and is responsible for the wide variety of colours in hydrangea flowers. Ilona pointed out that , "in hydrangeas you lower the ph for blue flowers (more acid) and raise it for pink (more alkaline)." I did a bit of checking and found that this is the case . At lower soil pH hydrangea flowers do appear blue and at higher soil pH they appear red. But soil pH is not the only thing that affects the colour of hydrangea flowers. It appears that pH inside the plant cell has an affect as well: Sepal Color Variation of Hydrangea macrophylla and Vacuolar pH Measured with a Proton-Selective Microelectrode Anthocyanin changes its color depending on pH (Goto 1987, Brouillard 1988, Goto and Kondo 1991). In strong acidic conditions it shows red, in neutral, purple and in alkaline, blue. But generally the vacuolar pH of plant cells is weakly aci
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more