Left Brain/Right Brain suggests some talking points for the
congressional hearing next week:
1) We need focus on improving the quality of life of Autistics
2) While not all Autistics can self-advocate, if we are going to have autism organizations represented, we need to have Autistic-run organizations represented.
3) Autism is a very broad spectrum, all with challenges of some sort. The government’s response needs to be broad (read-larger than it is now) in order to encompass all the needs of these communities.
4) The vaccine-epidemic hypothesis has been very damaging to the autism communities. Please don’t allow this meeting to be a way around the science in order to keep that idea alive.
5) There are faux therapies in common use for autism. Many are harmless. Some are dangerous and based on incredibly poor science. We need to get accurate information out about these practices.
The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism observes:
We at TPGA are concerned that no autistic-run organizations have been invited to the meeting as of this writing. We are also concerned about the track record of such congressional hearings: they have been used in the past to promote harmful misinformation about autism, and one of the past and current committee members is Rep. Dan Burton, who still firmly believes his grandchild's autism was caused by vaccines.
