Please take a few moments today to tell your legislators in Washington, DC the ugly truth about the massive waste of taxpayer dollars by the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) that’s more interested in covering up the causes of autism than in finding them.

We saw for ourselves, firsthand what a farce the IACC has become. But unless we get messages to legislators IN LARGE NUMBERS, nothing will change in Washington.

Please click on the Take Action Link to the letter below from our friends at the Canary Party to your two US Senators and your member of the House of Representatives.

Please share this message with friends and family and please post to Facebook and other social networks. And if you support the work of the Autism Action Network please consider making a donation at www.autismactionnetwork.org.

TAKE ACTION HERE.

On July 10, HHS Secretary Sebelius effectively turned the Combating Autism Act into the “Accepting Autism Act.” In her speech to the autism community, she made no mention of prevention, recovery, cure or in any way ending autism.

The Congressional Budget Office states the bill (S.1094) authorizes the spending of $693 million in taxpayer dollars on “programs that support activities to prevent, diagnose and treat autism.” One of the three stated purposes for S.1094 is entirely missing from Sebelius’ plan: prevention. In fact, she highlighted three newly appointed members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) who actually oppose curing, preventing or aggressively treating autism. A fourth new member shares these views, making 20% of the new IACC public members opposed to combating autism.

With the annual cost of autism having tripled in six years to $126 billion (according to Goldman Sachs) we can’t afford this kind of incompetence and complacency. Beyond the financial costs, the emotional toll of autism is incalculable. The mortality rate among the autism population is twice that of the general population. Sebelius even went so far as to question the reality of the explosive increase in autism rates since 1990, claiming scientists “thought” autism was rare in the 1990’s, but now “know” autism affects 1 in 88. Our CDC and NIH directors also downplay the autism crisis, calling autism “common” and merely “a health challenge.” The administration refuses to declare autism a national health emergency or an epidemic.

In her selection of IACC members, Secretary Sebelius made a mockery of CARA (Combating Autism Reauthorization Act) and sent a strong rebuke to the mainstream autism community by rejecting the nomination of a renowned Harvard pediatric neurologist who specializes in autistic regression and treatment among other highly qulaified candiates. She also rejected the president of the National Autism Association that serves 20,000 families, funds treatment research, provides grants and hosts a national conference.

Instead, Sebelius chose public members who defend and protect vaccine industry interests – vaccines being strongly implicated in the autism epidemic. IACC chair Tom Insel, whose brother developed a vaccine on the current CDC schedule, has blocked all research into the vaccine-autism link. More than fifty studies show solid evidence of this link, but IACC helped waste $1 billion chasing a non-existent “autism gene.” We’ve seen decades of cover-up of the autism-vaccine connection – a cover-up exemplified by a leaked memo from the former IOM Immunization Safety Review chair Marie McCormick who said, “…we will never come down that it [autism] is a true side effect…”

No issue more profoundly affects our children’s and our nation’s health than the autism epidemic. I hereby join the Autism Action Network and the Canary Party and its supporters in calling for a long overdue congressional investigation. The current IACC must be dismantled and CARA overhauled to reflect its originally intended goals.