From CTV.CA, London [Ontario] Free Press:

TORONTO — The father of an autistic teenager who has camped out at the Ontario legislature for more than a week is vowing not to eat until the province agrees to eliminate the backlog of children waiting for a crucial but costly therapy.

Stefan Marinoiu, 49, who has been drinking nothing but water for eight days, is trying to put pressure on the province to deliver the treatment more quickly to autistic kids, including his 15-year-old son Simon.

Marinoiu’s goal is to eliminate by November the wait list of 1,148 eligible children who are still waiting to receive intensive behavioral intervention therapy, or IBI.

Says government is too quick to dismiss possible link

From CBS News, the New York Times and elsewhere:

(15-second commercial precedes video)

Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, tells CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson that the question of a link between vaccines and autism is still open for debate. Her comments came as the United States Court of Federal Claims began another hearing to decide whether the vaccine additive thimerosal led thousands of children to develop symptoms of autism.

“I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational,” Healy said.

“But public health officials have been saying they know, they’ve been implying to the public there’s enough evidence and they know it’s not causal,” Attkisson said.

“I think you can’t say that,” Healy said. “You can’t say that.”

Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are “susceptible” to vaccine side effects — afraid the answer will scare the public.

(more…)

From the Hartford Courant:

The Connecticut General Assembly and Senate have approved a bill requiring a health insurance policy to pay for physical, speech and occupational therapy for treatment of autism spectrum disorders, to the same extent it covers the services for other conditions. The measure now awaits the governor’s signature, and would take effect January 1.

The new legislation “certainly brings more fairness to decisions insurance companies make about what’s covered,” said Kevin Lembo, the state healthcare advocate, who advocated for the bill. It doesn’t make much sense that “grandma can get speech therapy after a stroke,” but an autistic child can’t get the same service, he added.

The Connecticut Association of Health Plans did not try to block the autism bill, said the association’s lobbyist, Keith Stover.

“We think that the bill that passed this session was a rational compromise on autism,” Stover said. The concern of insurers, he said, is “We want to be very, very careful to ensure there’s a bright line between medical costs and costs that are more related to special education.”

See earlier posts:

• Florida legislature passes autism bill; Other disabilities left out
• NC to require insurance coverage of autism treatments
• Other posts start here

From the BBC:

For the first time, Britain will conduct a census of adults with autism in order to better support them. In announcing the £500,000 project, Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis said adults with autism are too often abandoned by health and social services.

“We still don’t know enough about autism, but we do know that left unsupported, it can have a devastating impact on those who have the condition and their families, ” he said. “One of the key gaps in our knowledge is simple - we don’t know how many people have the condition in any given area.”

The group has been hard to measure partly because so many people have grown up before improvements in recognition and diagnosis; and some may have been labelled inappropriately as having mental health problems or learning difficulties or not acknowledged at all.

The National Autistic Society was enthusiastic about the effort.

From the Seattle Times:

Wil Kerner (left) builds elaborate and expressive artwork using construction paper and scissors.

What the autistic 12-year-old can’t express verbally or in social interaction he can show through his carefully cut out geometric shapes assembled into characters in a paper collage, a talent the staff at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center calls a rare artistic gift. Large red circles become heads, delicate strips of fringed white paper become hair, and finely cut arches are shaped into eyebrows.

The art — and the artist — intrigues those who study autism. Dr. Stephen Dager, interim director of the University of Washington’s Autism Center, who has been studying brain anatomy and chemistry in autism, is mystified by Wil’s artistic talents. Autistic people generally pay little attention to eyes during social interaction, studies show, and usually are unaware of others’ emotions. Yet, Wil has the ability to mimic human emotion through his art.

From the Associated Press:

PITTSBURGH - Criminal charges were dropped this week against a doctor accused of causing the death of a 5-year-old autistic boy by incorrectly administering the wrong drug for him.
Dr. Roy Kerry was trying to use chelation therapy on Abubakar Tariq Nadama in 2005. Chelation is an approved treatment for acute heavy metal poisoning and while some people believe it is a promising treatment for autism, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do not agree.

The Butler County district attorney charged Kerry last year with involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment, but recently moved to drop charges. A judge granted the dismissal on Tuesday.

Kerry, 70, still faces a civil lawsuit by the boy’s parents.

Earlier post here.

From Time magazine:

South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who races on carbon blades, is named to the list of the World’s Most Influential People in Time Magazine’s annual issue. Paralympian Pistorius is challenging the rules in an attempt to compete in the Beijing Olympics. (Earlier post here.) The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled in January that Pistorius could not compete because his blades were said to give him an unfair advantage.

Time’s profile of Pistorius was written by Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind person to have climbed Mount Everest (earlier post here). Weihenmayer says Pistorius is “on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage.”

Also featured in Time’s annual 100 issue:

• Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who studied her own stroke and became a powerful voice for brain recovery (video here);
• Cyclist and cancer survivor advocate Lance Armstrong;
• Suzanne and Robert Wright, founders of Autism Speaks