January 19, 2009

Shenanigans at the IACC

The Combating Autism Act of 2006 set aside almost a billion dollars for autism research, some of which was to go to environmental causes, some of which were to be vaccine research.

CAA created the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, to be made up of both federal officials and members of the public to put together a strategic plan deciding who would get the money to research what.

We got a good idea that the fix was in when Joyce Chung, wife of Roy Grinker, autism epidemic denier, was appointed the committee coordinator, and Thomas Insel, committee head, began making decisions to cancel chelation research (claiming that chelation procedures that are currently the standard of care for metal toxicity and have been so for the last half a century, were suddenly too dangerous to be tested on children with autism.)

Our suspicions were confirmed last week when, after giving the thumbs up to vaccine research in the previous meeting, a surprise revote was held, and the IACC decided to reverse itself and decided that vaccine research into the causes of autism was not necessary.

And it is not just the revote itself that stinks to high heaven, but stories of individual dramas surround the revote are coming to light, most notably Alison Singer's decision to resign from her VP position at Autism Speaks the night before the surprise revote because she knew that she was going to have to vote in opposition to the AS's stance that vaccine research is needed. But wait... if the revote was a surprise... how did Alison know the night before that the vote was coming and that it would be on the topic that it was on and that she would be voting the way she would and that AS would not like it?

What did Alison know and when did she know it?

And is Alison being given any incentives, financial or otherwise, to vote thusly? I mean quitting a six figure income job as VP in the biggest autism org in the world over one vote is quite a step, especially in this economy. She has been dining with Paul Offit and Every Child by Two was the first to run her press release on leaving AS. Merck funds Offit and Wyeth funds ECBT. Is Pharma money making its way into Alison's bank account in exchange for her vote to kill research into whether or not vaccines cause autism?

And wouldn't that be a criminal offense?

Today we learned that Generation Rescue and some friends have been tracking a large number of shenanigans that have been going on at the IACC, and that legal inquires may be on the horizon. Turns out that the committee is not being run by the rules. Shocker right?

The Federal Advisory Committee Act sets the rules on how federal advisory committees, (which IACC is) are to be run. Makeup, prior notices, input, disclosures and the like. But apparently Insel's IACC is above these rules and can just do what it likes.

Stay tuned... this is going to get interesting.

UPDATE: Katie's pissed.

5 comments:

Victorious1 said...

Thank you for your post. Amazing information.

DMV47 said...

Wow. I'm SO glad you're on top of things. Always an interesting read. (albeit the frustrating truths about what goes on behind closed doors! UGH!)

Robin Nemeth said...

I'm told that Bernard Rimland referred to the CAA as the 'pretending to combat autism act'.

*shrug*

What did you expect?

Ginger Taylor said...

Robin... this is pretty much exactly what I expected.

And it is not going to change until someone comes in with a baseball bat and enforces the law.

... and no one wants to do it.

Grandparents said...

We, the Autism Community, have been given an opportunity here. We must mobilize and express our outrage over the deceit orchestrated by the government members of the IACC. We must contact our Congressional members and the Obama Administration and apprise them of the situation and request that Tom Insel be replaced, the vaccine research projects be reinstated as a priority, and that the IACC be reconstituted to give the national Autism organizations memberships equal to the government.