Update on the Combating Autism Act

Dear Parents and Friends,

As you know, the Combating Autism Act (CAA) is now in the hands of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton. We want to pass along to you what we have learned about the House version of Senate bill 843 in recent weeks and where the bill stands now.

We do not support the legislation in its present form, although we are keeping a careful eye on developments as they unfold. At this moment, we do not know the fate of the report language we recommended nearly two weeks ago to Rep. Barton. These suggestions make a very strong statement on the role of vaccines/thimerosal in the development of autism, and provide a clear directive that research dollars go to the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

Those of us with the undersigned organizations who have been actively working on the CAA have combed through the current bill, dissected the language, and discussed the legislation in person with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.

This past Thursday, several representatives of NAA and SafeMinds visited legislative offices on the Hill, meeting with eight offices, half Republican and half Democrat. We presented the current form of the bill to over 20 staffers on both sides of the aisle while seeking their input. We also spoke with Directors and Deputy Directors of NIMH, HHS and NIEHS to seek their input on the value of the bill as it now stands. As a result of these meetings and ongoing discussions, we offer the following observations of the bill as it now stands:

The environmental language is still in this bill. We are working to strengthen this area through the legislative report as we did with the Senate version of the bill.
Research topics in the House version were originally to have been narrowed down to four broad categories. We were able to get the more detailed list back into the bill which now includes a directive for the following research topics: pathology, developmental neurobiology, genetics, epigenetics, pharmacology, nutrition, immunology, neuroimmunology, neurobehavioral development, endocrinology, gastroenterology, and toxicology. The bill states that "Such research shall investigate the cause (including possible environmental causes), diagnosis or rule out, early detection, prevention, services, supports, intervention, and treatment of autism spectrum disorder."
Rep. Barton's version of the bill gives oversight of the strategic plan to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), rather than leaving it in the hands of the NIH. This is an improvement over the passed Senate version of the bill, potentially allowing for more input and oversight of the plan from the autism/mercury community.
So far, the bill has no language that would violate the rights of parents and children, and we have remained actively involved to prevent such language.
The Senate version of the bill including the Report Language and Colloquy directing $45 million to NIEHS for research including studies on vaccines and their components doesn't go away. It becomes part of the legislative history package that is delivered to Appropriations Committee should the bill pass. The environmental directives in the Senate version will weigh strongly as the committee appropriates the money to NIH divisions (including NIEHS). Our hope is to strengthen the Senate directive by including an environmental statement from Barton.
Dismissing this current bill in the hope of gaining a new bill under the Democratic leadership is something we have considered, and is still an option. We are discussing this avenue with other organizations and legislative offices. Some pitfalls with this action include a likely delay in any re-writing of this bill. We expect the new leadership will be bombarded in January by proponents of other issues more likely to take hold under Democratic control, therefore slowing down the process across the board. Our Democratic contacts on the Hill have confirmed this.

Additionally, a Democratic Congress alone does not ensure that stronger vaccine/thimerosal language will become a reality. While the ties to the pharmaceutical industry may not be as strong as on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats include powerful and vocal advocates of vaccines in general who may try to circumvent any autism-related legislative language that includes references to vaccines.

Our chief concern is that if all of the environmentally-focused organizations were to walk away from the table now, unfavorable provisions could possibly be attached and we could lose the ability to hold on to the important provisions we have gained. We cannot allow that to happen in a bill that may pass with or without input from autism/mercury groups. We believe that continued representation by our community is necessary in any legislative issues that involve our children, and will only support this legislation if the environmental criteria pertaining to vaccine/thimerosal research is met.

Based on everything above and what we know at this point in time, we remain cautiously optimistic about the bill and feel we are making the wisest decision for our children by staying involved with the process.

With the House now out of session until December 4, we don't expect further official activity until after that time. We will continue to keep you informed of any new developments regarding this legislation.

Sincerely,

The National Autism Association
SafeMinds
Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology
Autism One