The Individuals with Autism Act: Will it Make a Difference?

With the presidential election about nine months away, give or take a few days, politician season is in full force. Presidential candidates are spending more time than usual talking about what they have accomplished and what they want to accomplish trying to convince each one of us that he, or she, is the better person for the job.

Because I have two autistic children and because I tend to frequent parenting groups on line that focus on autism, I have heard a lot of people say that they support Hillary Clinton because she is supported the Combating Autism Act of 2006 and is currently supporting another bill that we are told will give $20,000,000 more to autism research.

That bill is called the Expanding the Promise for Individuals with Autism Act of 2007 (HR 1881). In fact, that bill made some national attention when Hillary Clinton and Wayne Allard met with several advocacy groups to unveil this bill. The press release from March 20, 2007 is available on Hillary Clinton's website .

With all the lip service being paid to another bill, from both politicians and parents of autistic children, that's going to give another $20,000,000 more to autism research I had to look into it. After reading the bill in its entirety, I am wondering how many people have actually read the bill and just not blindly taking the word of politicians that a lot of money is going to go into autism research.

At the current time this bill is nothing but a tool that politicians can use to pay lip service to autism research. I hate to say this, but with 1 in 150 children being diagnosed with autism and Jenny McCarthy jumping on the autism awareness bandwagon with her autistic son, autism has become the vogue cause to support. It's popular right now and those politicians that want to appeal to and gain the support of parents with autistic children as well as autistic adults, they are going to pay it lip service.

Consider for a moment that HR 1881 was officially introduced into the Committee on Energy and Commerce on April 17, 2007, and is not even scheduled for debate nine months later.