PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release: October 12, 2006

Contact: Rita Shreffler, NAA (Nixa, MO) 417-818-9030 Wendy Fournier, NAA (Portsmouth, RI) 401-632-7523

CDC Announces New Autism Study as Advocacy Organizations Challenge Agency’s Motivations
Concern among parents over past CDC handling of autism data casts a shadow on future studies

Nixa, MO – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a new study last week regarding the autism epidemic currently plaguing one in 166 children in the U.S. While the CDC has never officially declared autism an epidemic, the agency and the American Academy of Pediatrics released a joint “Autism A.L.A.R.M.” in 2004 which stated that one in six children now suffers from a developmental disorder and/or behavioral problem. This study comes following mounting concerns from parents and scientists that the CDC manipulated relevant vaccine safety data and that the agency may be concealing a connection between vaccines and the huge rise in autism and related disorders in recent years.

“Many parents get nervous when they see ‘autism’ and ‘CDC’ in the same sentence, and for good reason,” commented Claire Bothwell, National Autism Association (NAA) board chair and parent of a vaccine-injured child diagnosed with autism. “The transcripts from the Simpsonwood meeting clearly show that the CDC was well aware of a relationship between mercury in vaccines and neurological disorders in children, yet they did all they could to see that this crucial information remained buried. How can parents ever trust this agency to conduct honest autism research given its past deceit?”

The Simpsonwood transcripts are from a June, 2000 meeting of CDC scientists in Norcross, Georgia. The meeting was held to discuss the results of a study using the CDC’s vaccine safety data base to determine whether thimerosal, a mercury-based vaccine preservative, might be causing injury to young children. The transcripts were obtained by the nonprofit organization SafeMinds through the Freedom of Information Act and are now widely available to concerned parents seeking answers for once-healthy children who regressed into autism following exposure to mercury in vaccines.

Compounding the mistrust of the CDC is the secretive manner in which data for other autism studies has been collected.  Last year, parents in Colorado and Arkansas became aware that the CDC had collected medical and school records of their children without obtaining parental consent. “It’s an outrage that this agency has complete access to any information they want on our children, and parents have no say in the matter whatsoever,” observed Bothwell.

The CDC’s release on the new study doesn’t mention vaccines or mercury, fueling concerns of yet another
smokescreen, steering attention from what many parents consider the most critical factor in the development of autism. “In my opinion, the study will muddy the waters further as they spend millions on anything other than the mercury portion of the equation,” noted NAA board member Laura Bono.

The study includes data collection from cheek swabs and blood and hair sampling. “Even if mercury detection was a research objective, these methods would only be useful for recent exposures. Mercury clears the blood rapidly, settling in the brain and other target organs,” said Bono. “Additionally, the two to five year age range of the children in the study is of concern as the largest mercury exposures are among the older kids. The CDC knows this. Their unwillingness to explore the most plausible causation factor is very telling.”

For more information on autism, go to www.nationalautism.org.

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