Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee

Calling All Families!  Let your Voice be Heard!

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is currently taking Requests For Information (RFI) on their 2010 Strategic Plan in an effort to update for 2011.

The committee is specifically asking what has been learned in the past year about the issues covered in each of the seven chapters of the IACC Strategic Plan, and on what are the remaining gaps in the subject area covered by each chapter. In addition, the committee is seeking input on the introductory chapter and other general comments about the Strategic Plan.

This is your chance to weigh in on critical gaps including the need for research into the link between vaccines and autism, a greater focus on environmental factors, the biological underpinning of ASD, the development of effective strategies in an and effort to both treat and prevent the development of autism.

For years parents have reported that their children regressed developmentally and physically after vaccination, and subsequently were given a diagnosis of autism. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has compensated 1,322 cases on the basis of vaccine-induced brain damage, seizure disorder, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, and encephalopathy. Many of these cases were also diagnosed with autism after suffering the vaccine injury. Since vaccines are universally recommended and mandated in most states for all infants starting at birth, they should be subjected to the highest level of safety standards and research. Concerns voiced by parents, physicians, and the scientific community regarding vaccine injury must be addressed with thoughtful, complete, and unbiased investigations by NIH. Unfortunately, that has not happened to date.

We'd like to encourage everyone to share their thoughts with this important committee. Submitting a RFI is easy. Simply click here. You will be prompted to submit responses on the seven questions/chapters of the IACC Strategic Plan. If time is an issue (and it usually is), we are trying to focus on questions 2 and 3. These questions address the biology, causation and prevention of autism.

Please feel free to use the official SafeMinds response as a guide to answer these questions. All submissions must be in by Friday, July 30th. Comments collected through this RFI will be posted to the IACC web site after the closing date.

SafeMinds is submitting an official response to the RFI that you can review and use as a model for comments. Read it here. It is critical that we take advantage of all opportunities to have our voices heard. The future of our children depends on it.