Autism Community! Congress is Listening!
Congress is Listening !
Hundreds of you have visited the Facebook page of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform – THANK YOU! We have talked to the committee’s staff and they have taken note of your input. If you haven’t posted yet, please do at:
http://www.facebook.com/Oversight
http://www.facebook.com/oversightdems
We need to keep up a steady stream of requests to make sure that they don’t forget about us. And now we have more exciting news.
SafeMinds and the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association are hosting a Congressional Briefing at 10:00 am on Friday, May 18th. Read the invitation that will be sent to Congress here. We need your help to get people in that room for what we can guarantee will be an eye-opening presentation.
It is critical that you contact your legislators directly to ask them and their staff to attend this briefing. We’d like you to do this two ways:
1. Fax a picture of your child with a brief note at the bottom to the two offices of the committee. It could read something like “My child (insert name) suffered a brain injury from their vaccines which led to the development of autism. SafeMinds is hosting a briefing on our management concerns with the VICP and I would like you or someone from your office to attend.” This will really help put a face on the issues.
House Oversight Committee Majority Fax - (202) 225-3974
House Oversight Committee Minority Fax - (202) 225-4784
2. Call and/or fax and/or e-mail your Representatives directly and request that they attend the briefing. This is important for everyone, but critical for those members listed below who sit on the committee. They need to hear from their constituents! If your Representative is not listed below, go to http://www.house.gov/representatives/ and click on the name of your Representative for contact information.
And thank you for taking the time to get this done!
http://issa.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&vi …
202-225-2276
202-225-0016
http://burton.house.gov/contacts/new
202-225-4035
202-226-0821
https://mica.house.gov/contact-form
202-225-5836
202-226-1000
Bob,
I think they should forget the Smiley face and just use MAD Magazine's Alfred E. Newman "What Me Worry? image. I don't know what happened maybe the denialist complained that Autism Speaks PSA's was too depressing or too real. Maybe the videos of autistic kids being autistic threatens their little comfort zone or maybe they were afraid the public would wake up to the crisis. Who knows?
I think they are tying to make lemonade out of toxic chemicals because quite frankly they don't know how else to respond to this crisis so the decided well, autism's really not so bad so lets just normalize it. The Autism crisis has become a PR spin campaign with the spinmasters working overtime. So disconnected from reality.
Posted by: Sarah | May 11, 2012 at 01:18 PM
"... 1. Fax a picture of your child with a brief note at the bottom to the two offices of the committee. It could read something like “My child (insert name) suffered a brain injury from their vaccines which led to the development of autism. SafeMinds is hosting a briefing on our management concerns with the VICP and I would like you or someone from your office to attend.” This will really help put a face on the issues......."
************************
I think this is a great idea, but i think it would be even better if we could somehow maintain an independent record of all the stories that get submitted.
One of the problems with doing this , is that the collective "we" have no way of knowing how many stories will be submitted. If a follow up is done in 5 or so years from now, and that follow up finds that little or nothing was done.... then we really have no recourse when they hit us with the excuse that " they only ever received a handful of stories"
We definitely need to make these people aware, but we'll eventually need to verify that they received the information, and STILL decided to do nothing.
Posted by: Barry | May 10, 2012 at 06:35 PM
@ Sarah .. I greatly appreciated your recommendation to view the heartbreaking "youtube" video of a vaccine injured child shown by Rep. Dan Burton testifying .. "back in 2002". It was riveting .. raising the obvious question: How could ANYONE .. in 2002 .. view that video, not have tears in their eyes .. and .. not vow to do something about it??
In 2006 .. I was greatly encouraged when I viewed the film "Autism Every Day" .. created by Autism Speaks .. especially because Bob and Susan Wright .. like myself .. were grandparents of a child with autism .. had founded Autism Speaks .. and .. in addition .. were executive producers of this "award winning" .. excellent documentary film.
Finally .. "Autism had indeed knocked on the wrong door of the Wrights .. and .. THEY were going to "tell it like it is".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vCz2KWMM0
What the hell happened???
How did we go from Burton's "video" of a vaccine injured child .. and .. Autism Speaks "video" of the every day devastating experience of caring for a child on the lower end of the spectrum .. to the "smiley face" that Autism Speaks "autism awareness" .. has firmly placed upon the SPECTRUM?
WE ARE LONG PAST THE TIME THAT CONGRESS AND THE SENATE IGNORES WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR CHILDREN .. WHILE THEY FOCUS THEIR ATTENTION AND THE MEDIA .. ON MULTI-MILLIONAIRE ATHLETES WHO ABUSED STEROIDS OR SECRET SERVICE AGENTS WHO ABUSED PROSTITUTES.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | May 10, 2012 at 06:15 PM
Thank you for this information. Yes, the Congressmen absolutely MUST see our kids! They must see what our families are going through. We should all fax our children's picture.
Videos are even more powerful and effective. Like when Americans first saw newsreels of the carnage left by the Nazi's in Germany.
Back in 2002, Representative Dan Burton showed a video of a vaccine injured child when he testifying about mercury in vaccines. The video, which he showed at the beginning of his testimony, shows a boy about age 9 with autism. The damage to this child is obvious. Burton said "I want you to see what these parents are going through with these kids". That video of that boy immediately got everyone's attention in that room. Women wept. Men were holdng their head in shame. It was a very powerful moment. No words needed.
Please consider doing the same on May 18.
Here's the piece with video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y1VTYzLYy4
Posted by: Sarah | May 10, 2012 at 08:45 AM