John McCain, Luke Wimmer and Autism

Local Dad in Convention Spotlight

GOP Autism Dad: Biomedical Treatments Are Helping My Son

(I am still supposed to be on a blogging break, so please forgive my not keeping up with the comments, but this stuff should be posted, even though I don't have time to comment. Will return to regular blogging soon.)

Education Week Clears Up The Confusion On Palin and Special Ed Funding

Again... Sara Palin DID increase Special Education Funding.  On the charge that she cut funding:

"... these charges against Palin are false, driven by a misreading of the budget documents for the state.

The "proof," as has been presented, is part of the fiscal 2007 budget for the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, which includes funding for the Alaska School for the Deaf, students who are patients at the Alaska Psychiatric Hospital, and the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy, a statewide, boot-camp-style program. The budget that year was $8,265,300.

But the next year, fiscal 2008, the budget is shown as $3,156,000, leading to the accusation that Palin cut the department's budget.

The difference in funding, however, is because the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy moved to a budget line item of its own. In the fiscal 2009 budget, you can see that the academy alone has a budget of $6,082,100. When you add that to the $3,156,000 that is being spent on all the other projects, it adds up to $9,238,100--an approximately 12 percent INCREASE in spending on all those particular programs, put together, since fiscal 2007."

Sarah Palin Raised Special Education Funding in Alaska

A few are under the impression that Sarah Palin cut Special Education funding in Alaska. Apparently she raised it dramatically.

From Education Week, April 30, 2008:

Alaska Legislators Overhaul Funding

Gov. Sarah Palin and state lawmakers have gone ahead with an overhaul of Alaska’s school funding system that supporters predict will provide much-needed financial help to rural schools and those serving students with disabilities.

The plan, enacted in the recently concluded session of the legislature, is based on recommendations issued by a legislative task force last year. It will phase in a greater flow of money to districts outside of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, over the next five years.

Advocates for rural and remote schools have lobbied for years for more funding, in particular noting the higher fuel, transportation, and other costs associated with providing education in communities scattered across the vast state.

A second part of the measure raises spending for students with special needs to $73,840 in fiscal 2011, from the current $26,900 per student in fiscal 2008, according to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.

Unlike many other states, Alaska has relatively flush budget coffers, thanks to a rise in oil and gas revenues. Funding for schools will remain fairly level next year, however. Overall per-pupil funding across the state will rise by $100, to $5,480, in fiscal 2009. Total K-12 funding will rise to $1.2 billion from $1.1 billion, when transportation, energy, and other state funds are included, according to estimates from the governor’s Office of Management and Budget.

The state also agreed to add another $216 million to fill in shortfalls in its teacher-retirement system, the budget office said.

Carl Rose, the executive director of the Association of Alaska School Boards, praised the changes in funding for rural schools and students with special needs as a “historic event,” and said the finance overhaul would bring more stability to district budgets.

Bill Bjork, the president of the Alaska state affiliate of the National Education Association, said that he was pleased with those changes, but that the plan, and the increase in per-pupil spending, “doesn’t do enough, soon enough,” particularly given the state’s strong oil revenues.

UPDATE:

Education Week's review of Sarah Palin. They confirm that she raised special needs funding and that she was even popular with the teachers union:

Sarah Palin supportive of state’s performance-pay plan.
By Sean Cavanagh and Alyson Klein

In tapping Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain has selected an elected official who has supported increased funding for education across her rural, frontier state and voiced support for school-choice programs that appeal to many conservatives.

A mother of five children, Ms. Palin, 44, vaults onto the national stage as the vice presidential nominee from relative obscurity, at least within the political and education circles of the nation’s capital.

The Republican governor was elected to that post less than two years ago. Before that, she was the mayor of Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage, which is the state’s largest city.

Members of education organizations in Alaska generally spoke favorably about Ms. Palin’s record on school issues since she took office in January of 2007. The governor has become a popular figure among the 13,000 members of the Alaska National Education Association, said Barbara Angaiak, president of the state affiliate of the National Education Association.

The union official credited Ms. Palin for having backed a legislative proposal, which became law this year, that overhauled the state’s school funding system. That plan brought more money to the state’s many rural and remote school districts and raised spending for students with special needs. ("Alaska Legislators Overhaul Funding," April 30, 2008.)

The measure raised per-pupil funding by $100, to $5,480, and brought the state’s total K-12 budget to $1.2 billion.

“She understands many of the issues that are important to educators in Alaska," Ms. Angaiak said. "She pushed fairly hard on funding, and we were pleased she was pushing.”

Supports Performance Pay

Alaska has one of the nation’s most unusual performance-incentive programs, which rewards school employees with payments for gains in student achievement. The state-run program is distinct in that it includes many different kinds of employees, from administrators and teachers to custodians and secretaries, offering them payments for increased student performance at their school.

The program was initially signed into law by the previous governor, Republican Frank H. Murkowski, as a three-year pilot program, though Ms. Palin has been supportive of it, said Eric Fry, a spokesman for the state’s department of education and early development.

Ms. Palin campaigned as a supporter of school-choice programs, though a number of Alaska education observers said they could not cite examples of her having shepherded policies in that area into law. Alaska, partly because it has so many rural schools scattered across formidable terrain, has a well-established tradition of allowing homeschool programs, which Ms. Palin has supported, Mr. Fry noted.

“There is awesome potential to improve education, respect good teachers, and embrace choice for parents,” Ms. Palin told lawmakers in her state-of-the-state address earlier this year. “This potential will prime Alaska to compete in a global economy that is so competitive it will blow us away if we are not prepared.”
Supports Flexibility on NCLB

Ms. Palin has also become known for juggling her duties as Alaska’s chief executive with those of a parent. Well into her term as governor, she announced that she was pregnant, and in April, she gave birth to a son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. The governor was reportedly back at work days after the boy was born. She and her husband, Todd, have four other children.

Since taking office, Ms. Palin has been generally supportive of the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act, though she has also backed Alaska’s efforts to gain more flexibility under the federal law, a number of observers said. Alaska officials have said that meeting the law's mandates has been difficult, particularly in the state's more remote districts.

The Alaska governor’s experience with the NCLB law appeared to reflect that of a particular constituency of policymakers on education, said Michael J. Petrilli, the vice president for national programs and policy at the Washington office of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

“Her instincts are going to come from rural America,” Mr. Petrilli said. “It’s hard to find a state that is less of a fit for No Child Left Behind” than Alaska, he added.

The relatively short amount of time Ms. Palin has spent in office made it difficult to predict the education views she would bring to a McCain administration, said Tom Toch, a co-director of Education Sector, a Washington think tank. But he suspected that Ms. Palin’s policy-shaping role on school issues would be a small one.

“There’s not much to suggest that she would be likely to put forward any serious discussion of school reform issues,” Mr. Toch said. Generally speaking, on education, “there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot there.”

Ms. Palin’s rise to the governor’s position was sudden. After serving as mayor of Wasilla, she easily defeated then-Gov. Murkowski, in the 2006 Republican primary, before beating Democrat Tony Knowles, himself a former Alaska governor, in the general election.

As a candidate, Ms. Palin reportedly did weigh in on an issue that has stoked enormous controversy, not to mention legal action, in states and school districts. During a televised debates for governor, she said she thought creationism, the Biblically based view that God created the universe, should be taught alongside evolution in public classrooms, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Such proposals are strongly opposed by the vast majority of scientists, who say so-called alternatives to evolution are inherently unscientific, and mislead students.

“Teach both,” Ms. Palin was quoted as saying during the debate. “You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is important, and I am a proponent of teaching both.”

Ms. Palin told the newspaper at the time, however, that she would not push to add creationist views to the state school curriculum. Mr. Fry said the governor had not supported any such proposal during her time in office.

Staff writers Linda Jacobson and Christina Samuels contributed to this report.

A Family with Autism Matters to John McCain

In the most significant speech of his life, John McCain talked about a family with autism:

"I fight for Jake and Toni Wimmer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Jake works on a loading dock, coaches Little League, and raises money for the mentally and physically disabled. Toni is a schoolteacher, working toward her master's degree. They have two sons; the youngest, Luke, has been diagnosed with autism. Their lives should matter to the people they elect to office. They matter to me. And they matter to you."

When I was watching Obama's acceptance speech last week, I was dying to hear the word "Autism", but I didn't.

Fortunately we are clearly on the radar of McCain.

I have heard that Obama is speaking in new Jersey tomorrow and autism families will be attending, hoping to get commitments from him.

Let's take it to both these men and find out what they will do for our children. Let's get firm commitments from them.

Barack Obama To Speak In NJ, Autism Parents to Go

In Jersey? Get your self to the Obama event. Tell him that John McCain is meeting with our families, writing to HIS Senate Health Committee for action and talking about our kids in his acceptance speech. Ask him to match and exceed what John McCain has done:

Date: Friday, September 5 starting at 3:00 pm

Please join us! We have a huge opportunity to meet Barack Obama before the election and we need you there.

To support vaccination choice, I am welcoming all families to an informal gathering on my front lawn this Friday, September 5th starting at 3:00 pm.

Obama’s motorcade will be passing in front of my house twice en route to and from a major DNC reception which starts at 5:00 pm.

Jon Corzine is co-hosting the event. We expect press and other NJ politicians to be there. The reception ends shortly before 7:00 pm where many will be attending dinner at Bon Jovi’s house about 5 minutes away.

If you can make it, e-mail me ASAP with your full name, address and home/cell # for everyone in your party. I will try to get info regarding Secret Service/security protocol tomorrow and will send a note to participants with directions and further details.

If you can’t e-mail me, come anyway… we’ll get you in.

If you arrive late, that’s ok, he will probably arrive close to 5:00 pm and he’ll probably leave about 6:45-7:00 pm.

You can take NJ Transit to Red Bank or the ferry from downtown NYC to Highlands. Carpool if you can but don’t worry, I have lots of parking.

If you are local, you must come… please. This is so important. Bring your kids, neighbors and friends.

Bring water and a picnic dinner. We’ll try to order pizzas if they can get through security. Whole Foods is 5 mns away.

Bring lawn chairs and outdoor toys. There will be lots of room for the kids to play.

At least one person will attend the DNC reception and will tell Obama “the folks outside are with me… please come out and say a few words, we all vote!”

Bring your video cameras and share your clips with us.

Bring lots of signs and banners. Think big, creative, bold.

Change. Vaccine Policy.

“He’s our guy” and will get to the bottom of the vaccine-autism link.

Change. The CDC. The FDA. The NIH.

Pharma Reform

Too Much Too Soon

Vaccine Choice

CDC Says 69 Shots By Age 18

CDC Says 33 Shots By 15 Months

Other Developing Countries Don’t Mandate Shots

1950 = #3 in Infant Mortality

2007 = #42 in Infant Mortality

No Forced Vaccination in America

1 in 6 = Special Needs Kids

1 in 60 = NJ boys with Autism (CDC)

1 in 42 = US boys with Autism (Truth)

We vote!

Help Our Kids, Sen. Obama!

If you can help with signs or banners, drop them off tomorrow or Fri morning.

Can you think of something creative we can do or make to get his attention or make him smile?

I’ll be on Gary Null tomorrow at 12:30 pm.

My next vaccine seminar is tomorrow at Long Hill Township Public Library in Gillette, NJ from 6-9pm. You can drop off signs at the library if you can’t make it to Middletown.

Let Obama see that we are serious… that we have a message for him.

Kim Stagliano for Louise Kuo Habakus

UPDATE:

I just got this email from Louise with corrections/detail/more information:

Hi, Ginger. Sorry for the curt nature of this email… crazy day. Obama is attending a DNC fundraiser and there’s no guarantee he will address our group so I don’t want to mislead..

1. You might want to sign it “Kim Stagliano for Louise Kuo Habakus” since it references my seminars and “come to my house.”

2. My Long Hill seminar was last night. *Does not imply endorsement go to www.njvaccinationchoice.org and click on Calendar of Events for more details

3. Tell people to email ASAP for alternate parking and other critical details since security will be very tight and they may be checking against a list of registered people. There will be no parking permitted on the street.

4. Please respect that this is a friendly gathering in an intimate setting with many children in attendance for friends and supporters of vaccination choice. We hope to encourage Obama to talk with our group.

I’ll send you the press release when it’s finalized. Say a prayer for us.

Best,
Louise

Sarah Palin's Message to Special Needs Parents

"To the families of special needs children all across this country, I have a message for you. For years you've sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters and I pledge to you that if we're elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House".

-Sarah Palin

John McCain meeting with A-Champ in November of last year:





There is still two months until the election, and there is plenty of time for Barack Obama to sit down with our community, and to use his position on the Senate Health Committee to make real CHANGE for children. If he does, he may take the poll position as the best autism candidate, but at the moment, unless things change dramatically, I will be endorsing McCain/Palin.

Vice President Sarah Palin, Mother of a Beautiful Boy with Downs Syndrome

I LOVE the sound of that.

John McCain has just chosen the mother of a child with Downs Syndrome as his running mate. Trigs mom, Sarah Palin.

This gives me hope.

Taking a Blogging Break

... to catch up with life. Well to try to gain some ground anyway.

Will be back in early September.

Raising Disabled Children is Hard

... and heartbreaking... and this is no news to us.  But to me it is telling that the researchers that found out how hard it was, even for upper income families, were "shocked".  

It seems that few people get what we are going through.

Which is probably why it is so easy for the medical community to ignore our children.

UNC study: 'chilling' hardship rates among families raising disabled children

Monday, August 18, 2008

Families with disabled children are struggling to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and to pay for needed health and dental care.  But according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, these challenges are now falling on middle-income households and not just on poor families as previous research has found. These latest findings show that long-held federal standards for identifying the nation’s poor are not capturing everyone in need and should be re-evaluated, especially for the financial effects on disabled children, said Susan L. Parish, Ph.D., the study’s lead investigator and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Social Work. “The bottom line is that U.S. families raising children with disabilities are reporting severe hardships at rates that are chilling, including families that are solidly middle-class,” she said. “We were shocked to find such high rates of hardship among upper-income families.” The study, which is based on 2002 data from the National Survey of American Families, is being published in this month’s journal “Exceptional Children.” The survey analyzed 28,141 households. The UNC study found that overall, families across all income levels who are raising disabled children are significantly more challenged by food, housing and health issues compared to families without disabled children. Many also struggled to pay their phone bills. Most surprising, Parish said, was data indicating that a significant percentage of those struggling are higher-income households. Yet based on federal poverty guidelines – which have remained unchanged since the 1960s and are used to determine eligibility for many income, food, health and disability-related programs – those same households would not be classified as “poor,” she said. They also would not qualify for assistance, despite the higher costs of raising children with disabilities, Parish noted. In 2002, the federal poverty level for a family of four was $18,100. According to the study, 40 percent of the surveyed families with disabled children who earned between two to three times the federal poverty level (between $36,200 and $54,300 for a family of four, for example) experienced at least one food hardship, including worrying that food would run out or skipping meals because of a lack of money. Fifteen percent of families with incomes at three or more times the federal poverty level ($54,300 and up for a family of four) experienced housing instability, meaning they were unable to pay their rent or had to move in with others. “These results suggest that state and federal policies that are in place to help families with disabled children are not going nearly far enough,” Parish said. “They are not eliminating deprivation. And these findings are particularly troubling now when the nation’s economy is struggling. Families raising children with disabilities are likely to be hardest hit during this economic downturn.” Though the study found that children with disabilities were more likely to have health insurance and a usual source of care, they were 61 percent more likely than non-disabled children to have postponed necessary medical care and 83 percent more likely to have postponed needed dental care. The study didn’t examine the causes for those results, but Parish said they likely are related to the expenses of obtaining care – even with health insurance – and other issues, such as limited transportation. The research results offer a compelling reason to expand eligibility standards for federal programs designed to assist families with disabled children, Parish said. Though more study is needed to determine how best to assist these families, UNC researchers suggest that increasing the income limits for food stamps, housing assistance and federal Supplemental Security Income, which assists low-income people with disabilities, would probably be a good start. Raising the asset limit for  Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid, the federal insurance program for the poor and disabled, so that families are not penalized for saving money in case of a hardship would also help, Parish said. “These families struggle to provide adequate care for their disabled children,” Parish said, “and stronger supports are vital.” School of Social Work contact: Michelle Rogers, (919) 962-1532, michrog@email.unc.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it News Services contact: Patric Lane, (919) 962-8596, patric_lane@unc.edu

Round Up: Too Much To List

So, So many important stories out there and I have not been around to follow up on them, or even my own stories.  Chandler has taken to eating dirt so his lead level has shot through the roof, and our kitty got hit by a car and has a broken pelvis.  It has been a tough week at chez Taylor.

Here are some of the things I have missed:

• David Kirby follows up on Rene Jenkins 3% and shares with us the Military's 2% stats for serious vaccine injury.  Digg it.
• Dan Olmsted on the 1979 Wyeth Memo.  Their reaction to the cluster of "SIDS" deaths in TN connected to their vaccine?  Stop shipping so many doses from the same lot to the same place, so health officials can't detect 'hot lots' that kill children.  Tantamount to an admission that Wyeth has known for 30 years that SIDS is a vaccine reaction.
• Margaret Dunkle proposes an action plan in the AJC in response to the Hannah Poling case.
• Chicago Tribune brings us more doubts on the safety and efficacy of Gardasil.
• Barbara Loe Fisher on the Gardasil injury reports that NVIC is receiving. 
• Drowning is the leading cause of death for children with autism. Christopher Connections.
• AP notes that it is becoming socially acceptable to be intolerant of children with autism.
  
• Even the pro-vaxers are counting the days until Julie Gerberding's tenure at (ruining) the CDC is over.  Watch the video.
  
• 8 Drugs Doctors Would Never Take.
• Paula Dorf "Cake" Mascara's primary ingredient is Thimerosal.
  
• Claire Daines may play Temple Grandin.  
• If Jeffrey Deutch's Building Common Ground is not on the list of blogs you read, it should be. 
• Pray for my son and my kitty cat. 

GMA Confirms Jenkins Comments Were About Autism

Last week GMA ran a piece on vaccines and autism that included a quote by Rene Jenkins of the AAP.

 "Ninty Seven plus percent of children don't have these defects, so, when you look at what the risk and the benefits to children are, and, you really weigh the risks, then the benefits far outweigh the risks that occur."

I wrote a piece heavily criticizing AAP for throwing away three percent of the population to serious vaccine injury.

Andrea Keller called GMA to see if they would release the rest of the interview.  They said their policy is not to release unused footage, but that the context of the conversation was Autism.

Daivd Kirby called AAP and asked for comment, and they said that Jenkins 'misspoke' and she was talking about minor vaccine reactions like "localized pain and swelling, and/or fever."

I spoke with the producer of the GMA piece this morning who interviewed Jenkins.  She reiterated that they don't release unused interviews, but she was nice enough to read me the question that was asked and Jenkins full response.

The discussion was about autism and not minor vaccine reactions.  The question was a version of 'can you rule out an association between vaccines and autism', and Jenkins answer was something to the effect of 'you can never rule out an association between anything and anything else, but we don't see an association.... but in the case of Hannah Poling...', (the interviewer had not mentioned Hannah).  And that lead into her quote, "Ninty Seven plus percent of children don't have these defects, so, when you look at what the risk and the benefits to children are, and, you really weigh the risks, then the benefits far outweigh the risks that occur."

So ABC DID use the quote correctly and in context.

David Kirby reports:

"I was told [by AAP] that Dr. Jenkins misspoke when she referred to children with “defects.” What she was talking about is the subset of children who have adverse vaccine reactions such as localized pain and swelling, and/or fever."

Jenkins was NOT talking about minor reactions and autism was the subject Autism and Hanna Poling WAS Jenkins reference point.

If Jenkins was misspeaking then that was a pretty out there misstatement.  If someone was asked about about the percentage of people who get brain damage from boxing, how would one rationally include bloody noses in the answer?

I encouraged ABC to follow up on this and help us get a real statement from AAP (or CDC) on what they believe the percentage is for kids who are at risk serious vaccine reaction and autism.

No Child By Two

One of the options for an alternate vaccine schedule is to wait and not begin vaccination until a child is two years old and has a mature immune system.

Dan Olmsted has a great column today on implementing a No Child By Two vaccine policy.

I think it is a great idea.

I have a friend who is taking her two month in to see the doc today and wanted advice on vaccinating.  My advice, as always, figure out what is the biggest threat to the child and work on preventing that.  There were Mumps in Maine last year, so I called CDC to see if that was still going around.  Nope... last case was in February.

So if there is no immediate viral threat to the baby, and the baby has a 1 in 150 chance of a serious neurological disorder, which vaccines are known to cause among other things, why not wait?

Monsanto Ditching Bovine Growth Hormone Business

So apparently Americans have decided that they prefer their milk with out puss.

They were not buying BGH milk so Monsanto is moving on.

And why were they not buying it?  Because dairys who didn't use it started labeling their product as Non BGH milk, educating the consumer that it was out there.

And who was the first dairy to do this and to have to face down Monsanto's lawyers for it?  OAKHURST DAIRY OF PORTLAND, MAINE!

Our little Maine milk makers started labeling their milk, "Our Farmers' Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones Used."  Monsanto did not like that because it implied that there was something bad about BGH milk.  Oakhurst decided that they had a duty to consumers and kept the labeling, and because they stared down the Mean Monsanto, other Maine dairies followed, and dairies followed nationally.

So thanks to Oakhurst for looking out for the consumer, and let's hope that no one is interested in buying the looser product, Posilac, and it goes the way of the dinosaur.

Now can you see why Monsanto is fighting labeling their genetically modified foods as such?  Once people find out what they are eating, they give a damn and won't buy this stuff.

The FDA needs to require GMO labeling.