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Sunday, April 21, 2002Representative Dan Burton from Indiana thinks we are in the midst of an autism epidemic. "We have an epidemic on our hands and we in Congress need to make sure the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) treat this condition like an epidemic," Burton said. How is it that Representative Burton alone among a nation is aware of this raging epidemic? His grandson is autistic. No doubt the autism of his grandson has affected his family in very grave and tragic ways, but that doesn’t mean our nation should spend the $500 million dollars a year on the disease that he wants. It’s not as if the CDC and NIH have been ignoring the disease. The CDC website is a font of information on programs and research available in the area. Burton is aided and abetted in his hysterics by (what else?) a political lobbying group for autism, The Autism Society of America. The Autism Society claims that the number of autism cases is on the rise in the United States: The organization estimates that the disorder is increasing at a rate of 10 percent to 17 percent a year, "faster than any other disability or disease," said Lee Grossman, the society's president. Autism and its related disorders affect 1 to 2 out of every 1,0000 people. Ten years ago, that number was 1 in 10,000, but ten years ago the label of autism was used only for those whose behavior was profoundly abnormal, the children who sat in a corner rocking back and forth and never spoke or interacted with anyone. Now the disease label has been expanded to include people who are still able to live a very productive life, but who are not adept at social interactions, like this artist. The interviewer, who views his syndrome as the over-riding definer of who the man is, describes him thus: “At the age of 44 he’s thinning on top, baggy-faced, soft in the belly and long in the tooth, yet there’s something childlike about him. I don’t mean this sentimentally: a clever child, the sort who can lie undetectably while looking you in the eye, but an easy person to be around. Anything can be said. Forget the normal etiquette between strangers, the need to pick your way through the minefield of another’s sensibilities. Howson has his touchy spots, but until he tells you where they are there is no way of knowing. To spend time in his company is to understand how strange communication is without non-verbal cues, how weightless words become. For a couple of hours, autism is a two-way street. Insights and commonplaces turn up in the same sentence. He talks about Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Britney Spears in the same voice as he discusses Ingres, Delacroix and Velazquez. And yet it’s not like sitting opposite a Martian. He laughs, makes jokes which are funny, nods in eager assent before I’ve finished speaking. Then mistrusts his own intuition and has to ask me to finish the sentence anyway.” He’s a little boorish, but certainly not mad. So, Representative Burton wants us to divert money from other causes to find ways to make people like Mr. Hawson more sociable and more capable of following etiquette. Hardly a cause worthy of 500 million tax payer dollars. posted by Sydney on 4/21/2002 11:06:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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