Autism 2008

Senator Clinton’s response to the A_CHAMP Presidential Candidate’s Questionnaire

Will you fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act?

Yes. I support fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Among my many
efforts to fully fund IDEA, I co-sponsored the IDEA Full-Funding Act of2003 to finally fulfill
the federal government’s long-standing promise to provide for 40 percent ofthe average per
pupil expenditure for each and every child with a disability. In 2005, I offered an amendment to provide $4 billion in additional funding for IDEA; the amendment failed by a narrow margin. I have been an advocate for people with disabilities throughout my career in public service.

After graduating from law school in 1973, I went to work for Marian Wright Edelman at the Children’s Defense Fund, walking door to door in New Bedford, Mass., to figure out why there were discrepancies between the number of school-age children and the number of children enrolled in school. What I discovered was heartbreaking - kids were kept out of school because of their physical disabilities. We submitted our findings to Congress and our study helped lay the groundwork for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which mandated that children with physical, emotional, and learning disabilities receive a free, appropriate public education.

As a Senator, I helped write the IDEA Reauthorization Act in 2004 in order to ensure that we have targeted resources dedicated to teacher training. As President, I will continue my fight on behalf of children with disabilities.

Do you believe that the Combating Autism Act provides enough money to find the cause, or causes, of autism and effective treatments?

A key aspect ofmy plan to address autism, which I unveiled in November, is to fully fund the
Combating Autism Act, which the Bush administration has failed to do. Through this legislation, we can work to identify the causes of autism; provide funds for surveillance; and increase autism education, early detection, and intervention. As President, I will double investments in the National Institutes of Health’s efforts to identify the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes. I will expand the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network and I will create Centers of Excellence in Autism Spectrum Disorder Epidemiology. And I will require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to disseminate infonnation about signs of autism, early screening, and training for professionals who deal with young children through federal programs that reach children and families - such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program - and to pediatricians.

How much funding will you request to study potential environmental triggers of autism?

I am very concerned about the possible links between autism, the environment and other chronic diseases. Because there is so much we don’t know, I not only support increasing funding for the environmental research authorized by the Combating Autism Act, but I’ve also introduced legislation - the Coordinated Environmental Public Health Tracking Act - that would enable us to link disease surveillance to environmental infonnation, and investigate disease clusters. This bill would provide $100 million to monitor the environmental causes of disease. I have also proposed to increase the NIH budget by 50 percent over five years and to double it over 10 years.

As President, I will provide a total of about $700 million annually to address autism. That
funding will go toward expanding research to identify causes of autism as well as creating a task force charged with investigating evidence-based treatments, interventions, and services; improving access to post-diagnosis care; providing teacher training; providing planning and demonstration grants for adults; creating a National Technical Assistance Center; and guaranteeing quality, affordable health care.

Do you believe there is an autism epidemic in the United States?

Yes. Today, one in 150 children rare diagnosed with autism, for a total of about 25,000 each year. In sum, about 1.5 million Americans and their families are affected by autism today. This national health crisis is costing the United States at least $35 billion each year. I have long been a strong advocate for individuals and families impacted by autism. I have cosponsored the Combating Autism Act and introduced the Expanding the Promise for Individuals with Autism Act, in order to ensure that Americans living with autism could have access as quickly as possible to evidence-based treatments, interventions, and services. When I am President, I will dramatically boost research funding for autism and support services for families caring for an autistic loved one.

What will you do to stop health insurers from discriminating against people with autism and their families?

As President, it will by my top domestic priority to provide quality, affordable health care to all Americans, including those with autism. My American Health Choices Plan will ensure that no one is denied coverage, refused renewal, unfairly priced out of the market, or forced to pay excessive insurance company premiums because ofpre-existing medical conditions or
disabilities.

What will you do to assure that health insurers pay for promising new treatments and behavioral therapy?

My American Health Choices Plan will make quality health care affordable to every single
American, including those with autism and their families. My plan will also create a Best
Practices Institute that would work as a partnership between the existing Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the private sector to fund research on what treatments work best and to help disseminate this information to patients and doctors to increase quality and reduce costs.

Do you think vaccines should be investigated as a possible cause of autism?

I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible
environmental causes like vaccines. I have long been a supporter of increased research to
determine the links between environmental factors and diseases, and I believe we should increase the NIH’s ability to engage in this type of research. My administration will be committed to improving research to support fact-based solutions, and I will ensure that the NIH has the staff and funding to fully explore all possible causes of autism.

What will you do to protect Americans, especially young children and pregnant women, from exposure to mercury through vaccines?

I will ensure that all vaccines are as safe as possible for our children by working to ensure that Thimerosal and mercury are removed from vaccines. I plan to fully invest in our research agencies so they can protect our children’s health, and so they can find the causes and cures for conditions such as autism.

What will you do to provide for the lifetime care that 250,000 to 500,000 current children with autism will need in the future?

Individuals with autism need assistance in many areas including education, employment,
transportation, housing, health, and recreation throughout their lives. As President, I will provide support and resources to help them lead full, rich, productive lives. Under my plan, I will provide funding for a planning grant for states and a multi-year service provision demonstration grant program to increase access to appropriate services to adults living with autism, including job training, housing, and transition services for young people leaving school. I will also create a dedicated funding stream to help schools train teachers who work with children with autism spectrum disorders. With the autism prevalence rate among children now at 1 in 150, the need to identify and provide services for adults with autism will grow even more important in the coming years.

Would you support a large-scale federal study ofthe differences in health outcomes
between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups?

Yes. We don’t know what, if any, kind of link there is between vaccines and autism - but we should find out. The lack of research on treatments, interventions, and services for children and adults with autism is a major impediment to the development of delivery of quality care. We need evidence-based research on what works and what doesn’t in order to provide the most effective services for people with autism. In addition to a large-scale federal study, I will create a task force that would include significant representation from the autism community and would be charged with identifying gaps in evidence-based biomedical research, behavioral treatments, and services for children and adults with autism. The task force would present these findings to Congress and the Executive Branch and would make recommendations on how to make evidence-based treatments, interventions, and services available at the state and local levels. Once the task force has completed its work, I will provide funding to establish state-based demonstration grants to provide these evidence-based autism treatments, interventions, and services.

Would you support a federal right for families and individuals to choose for themselves which vaccines they will use?

As President, I will support efforts to ensure that vaccines are safe and effective, including
independent reviews and large-scale studies. All Americans should have access to accurate and comprehensive information about vaccinations.

Are you satisfied that the federal vaccine approval process is free of conflicts of
interests, transparent and rigorous?

I believe that we need independent, thorough, and comprehensive testing of all drugs, including vaccines, to make sure that they are safe and effective. I will ensure that the process of approving vaccines is based on science and research - not ideology or other motives. I will do everything I can to protect the health and well-being of American families.

Very nice answers…I am not convinced any of this is something that she will do as President.  If she were passionate about it then why hasn’t any of this been in her stump speech?

Of course my calls, emails, and smoke signals to her campaign have been unreturned.