Legislative Federal

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Senators Allard & Clinton Introduce Expanding the Promise for Individuals with Autism Act of 2007

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 – ASBC’s Representative, Emmy Conroy, was on hand to witness the introduction of this landmark legislation that, if passed, would provide approximately $350 million to improve access to comprehensive treatments, interventions, and services for individuals with autism and their families. While there, Emmy (see left) also advocated with Colorado's delegation to endorse the CAA Funding Sign-On letter. Thanks Emmy! Please be sure to thank Senator Allard for introducing this important legislation. The proposed legislation aims to:

for the first time, convene a task force to evaluate and report on evidence-based biomedical and behavioral treatments and services
establish State-based demonstration grant programs to provide evidence-based autism treatments, interventions, and services for children and adults
support protection and advocacy systems to address the needs of individuals with autism and other emerging populations of individuals with disabilities.
fund expanded access to coordinated multi-agency treatments, interventions, and services to children
provide supplemental grants for training and technical assistance to service providers and educators and to establish a national center on autism information.

ASA, its national network of chapters and other autism organizations joined with Easter Seals, National Disability Rights Network, Association of University Centers on Disabilities and other organizations delivering needed services in calling on the Congressional leadership to support this welcome—and critical—federal legislation for families.

To read a summary of the Expanding the Promise for Individuals with Autism Act of 2007, click here. (PDF Format)

ACTION ALERT

Contact your senators today to sign-on to this important autism legislation, which will directly address much-needed supports and services for those with autism! Click here to take action on the Expanding the Promise for Individuals with Autism Act of 2007.

Urge Congress to Fully Fund the Combating Autism Act & Department of Defense Autism Funding

Senate Fully Funds the Combating Autism Act - The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2008 spending bill, including a 52 percent increase for autism-related activities at the CDC and Health and Resources Services Administration. This is the full amount authorized for these programs under the Combating Autism Act.

Specifically, the bill provides $37 million for the Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Residency Program and the Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Training Program, which both provide long-term, graduate-level interdisciplinary training, as well as services and care for infants, children and adolescents with disabilities. The Committee also provided $16.5 million for CDC’s autism programs, which include the Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Epidemiology (CADDRE) and the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. The House also provided $16.5 million for these programs.

Because funding levels for autism are different in the House and Senate bills, they will need to be worked out in a conference committee. ASA will be working diligently to ensure that autism activities receive the resources they need.

Support "The Vaccine Safety Promotion Act of 2007"

Representatives Dave Weldon (R. Fla.) and Carolyn Maloney (D. NY) have introduced legislation to reform the administration of vaccine safety by the Federal government. The bill, called the “Vaccine Safety Promotion Act of 2007” contains important reforms to vaccine-safety regulation conducted by our government. Take Action!

This legislation provides for the following:

Makes vaccine safety research and public oversight a high priority for Federal public health agencies
Requires public access to data
Requires transparency in decision-making by government regulators
Requires accountability by the government to the public that it serves
Requires long-term safety monitoring of the vaccine schedule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control.
Transfers vaccine-safety regulatory functions now conducted by the CDC to a new independent entity, the Agency for Vaccine Safety Evaluation (“AVSE”)
Requires that those who monitor vaccine safety and conduct vaccine research must be free of conflicts of interest
Places oversight of the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the nation’s primary resource for vaccine safety information, under the newly created AVSE. This change will assure the public that analysis and reporting of vaccine safety will be unbiased
Requires the vaccine industry to conduct post-marketing surveillance of adverse reaction to vaccines, a measure that will correct the inadequate testing that currently prevails
Creates an Advisory Council that gives significant participation in the administration of vaccine safety to parties outside the government regulatory bureaucracy
Provides for membership on the Advisory Council by those most affected by vaccine safety policy: vaccine-injured individuals and their parents.

Legislation That Hurts Our Kids

Drug Compounding In Jeopardy; Proposed bill would give the FDA full control over compounding

Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Burr (R-NC) and Roberts (R-KS) have circulated a copy of proposed draft legislation that would greatly restrict access to compounded medications. The legislation would severely restrict and possibly deny your access to critical medications. According to Parents and Professionals for Customized Care (PsC2), if this legislation passes, federal regulators, not your doctor, will decide what medicines you can take. The so-called Safe Drug Compounding Act of 2007 would, among other things, broadly eliminate the availability of many critical, commonly compounded medications that many patients rely on.

Dr. Jaquelyn McCandless states that [for the autism community], "this means that our children would not be able to obtain MB-12 (nasal or injections), LDN, detoxification agents such as DMSA and DMPS, secretrin, transdermals (such as NAC, TTFD, ALA, GSH), etc. (not to mention bio-identical natural hormone replacement and many other extremely important health items that have to be compounded). This is clearly written to benefit pharmaceutical companies, which is also behind the move to restrict or eliminate many of our vitamin- nutrient compounds. We have to become activists to protect our children; it would be devastating to not be able to get many of these compounds that are helping kids to an unprecedented degree now."

What can you do? Act now to stop this dangerous legislation! Write your elected representatives in Congress. Use P2C2's easy to use tool to write your members of Congress.

Click here to take action and to learn more.

Contact your congressman and share your concerns and ask them to vote against, or amend, these measures.

See the Making Your Voice Heard page for useful links for how to contact your elected officials.