As the room filled up I must say I was really impressed.  The turn out was much higher than I had expected it to be.  There were a lot of young staffers and we were hoping they really understood the importance of the information they were hearing.  When David Kirby started to speak, the room was silent.  I was happy people were really listening.  He gave so much great information about the “old” way  of looking at autism and the “new” way we need to look at it.  He talked about the misconception that the debate on vaccines and autism is over.  As he said, it is just getting started.  Mr. Kirby explained the kind of research that needs to be done in order to get the answers we all need.  One thing that really surprised me was when he mentioned that Autism Speaks is now funding studies to look into environmental causes of autism and even specific studies on Thimerosal.  Wow! 

Another point David Kirby made was that there is no single type of autism and no single cause.  We need to look at the combination of genes and environmental triggers.  He spoke about the different ways Mito dysfunction can be acquired.  He is not anti-vaccine but pro-vaccine safety.

One reason many staffers were there in place of the Senators and Congressmen and Congresswomen was that the meetings on the Bailout were going on at the same time.  But one of the first things Mr. Kirby pointed out was that the cost for the care and education of each person with autism is two to three million dollars per person.  Right now there are 250,000 people with autism in our country.  And this number is continuing to grow.  The financial impact of autism on our country is something I don’t think the government really understands.

Mark Blaxill then spoke about his daughter.  He showed pictures of her pre-regression and post-regression.  He spoke as a parent and explained how Congress can help us.  One of the ways Congress can help that the speakers discussed were by treating this as a national emergency, focusing on environmental causes and insisting on accountability.  A continuing point both speakers made was that research needs to be conducted and that the way it is handled needs to be changed.  Most of the studies we hear about were conducted by people with financial interest in how the study turns out.  We need to get rid of the conflict of interest and put the health of our children first.  They talked about the misconception that there is no increase in the rate of autism, just better diagnosing.  If that were the case there would be a huge population of adults with autism out there but there isn’t. 

There was so much information given that it was hard to keep up.  And the information didn’t just focus on the kids.  I was shocked to learn that one to two percent of our military is severely injured by vaccines.  One mom in the audience said her husband is active military and she has a child with autism.  She explained that the rate of autism for active military dependents in 1 in 88.  This was a figure I had never heard before.

To see the slides from the presentation you can go to www.evidenceofharm.com .  If you weren’t able to attend, you can view the slides and get a lot of great information.  After the briefing, my mother and I visited our Congressman to see if someone had attended from his office.  When I had spoken to his Legislative Director previously, I didn’t get a firm commitment.  It turned out nobody had attended but they said they would get the information from the briefing organizers.  I urge all of you to call your Senators and Congressmen and Congresswomen who were unable to attend and insist that they view the slides and get the information that they missed.  I believe the reason this meeting had such a great turnout was all the hard work of the moms and dads and other family members that worked so hard to get our representatives there.  But we need to keep the pressure on.  We need to keep in touch with our representatives and let them know that our children and our families need their continued help and support.

Kristin Bushey is a Mother Warrior.