NAA Grant Announcement - Applications accepted nationwide

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Hello, Just forwarding this info about NAA Grants that will be given out nationwide by the national organization (NAA). Please do not email me or anyone from the northeast Ohio chapter for more info but contact the national org. directly (email below). While the names of the grant programs are the same (Helping Hand), I wanted to emphasise that our local grant program is currently NOT accepting applications but is working to raise more $ so that we can have another round soon. I included herein some info about the national Helping Hand program (by NAA) but please check out the links below for more information. This grant is intended for families in dire financial need. It can used to cover only biomedical treatments, supplements and therapy services for an individual with autism. Date: Wed, 23

Jan 2008 14:47:09 -0500 (EST)From: National Autism Association <naa@...>egerpatt@...Subject: NAA News and Views In this edition ofNAA News & Views:Helping Hand 2008 Dan Burton Wants Answers Save the Date for NAA'sNational Autism Conference NAA - Northeast Ohio Event Golden Globes Boom Boom Room Goodsearch.com 2008 Faces of Autism In The NewsWinter Clearance Sale THINK AUTISM. THINK CURE. ® National Autism AssociationJanuary 23, 2008 If you are unable to view html formatted email, please visit our website to view this newsletter at http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/newsandviews. 2008 Grant Applications are now being accepted for NAA's Helping Hand Project. NAA is the only national autism membership organization to provide financial assistance to families in need of therapies and treatments for their children. We need your help! Please make a donation today to support this crucial program. 100% of your tax-deductible donation

will be awarded to a family. For more information on NAA's Helping Hand Project, please click here. If your business or organization is interested in becoming a corporate sponsor of the Helping Hand Project, please contact wendy@... today! Congressman Dan Burton Wants Answers from

FDA Have you been wondering just how much thimerosal is considered a "trace amount" by the FDA and who, if anyone, is testing mercury content in currently licensed vaccines? Congressman Burton is wondering the same thing - and he's asking the FDA for answers. Click here to read his letter. (pdf)http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/pdf/burtonfda.pdf Forwarded with permission from Congressman Burton NAA to Host National Autism Conferencethis November at Fort Lauderdale ResortHyatt Regency Bonaventure Conference Center & Spa Save the date! NAA's next National Autism Conference will take placeNovember 13-16, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Bonaventure http://bonaventure.hyatt.com Details coming soon! The National Autism Association - Northeast Ohio (NAA-NEO) Presents2nd Annual Autism Concertto Benefit Northeast Ohio Families and the Helping Hand ProgramIn response to the overwhelming amount of grant requests for the National Autism Association - Northeast Ohio (NAA-NEO) Helping Hand grant program, two benefit concerts will be held in

February 2008. The goal of these events is to raise the necessary funds so that we can respond to the high need for funding autism treatments and therapies in the Northeast Ohio community. Two shows will be staged this time - one in Akron, OH and one in Cleveland so that we can reach two major Northeast Ohio audiences. Support our mission by joining us at either of these events! Click here for details! NAA Joins Sponsor Little Playdates at the Golden Globes "Boom Boom Room" NAA President Fournier with Little Playdates CEO JoAnne Pettry Little Playdates, a dedicated supporter of the National Autism Association, was recently invited to distribute their award-winning children's videos at The Boom Boom Room - a Golden Globes

gifting suite for celebrities and their children in Los Angeles. The company's founders, Trent and JoAnne Pettry invited NAA president Fournier to join them at this exciting event. Celebrities in attendance included Chandra of Grey's Anatomy, Jodie Sweetin of Full House, Singer Carnie , Dayna Devon, host of EXTRA TV, s of Spin City, Tracey Gold of Growing Pains, Rena Sofer of Heroes, Noth of Sex and the City, Rinna, Ali Landry, Baio, Tori Spelling, Priestly and many more! Our sincere thanks to JoAnne and Trent for their ongoing support and for providing this wonderful opportunity to bring awareness to the needs of our children and the mission of the National Autism Association. Beginning next month, the Little Playdates video series for

children will be distributed to retail stores across the country by PorchLight Entertainment. Each video includes a public service announcement on the warning signs of autism produced by NAA co-founder Lori McIlwain with her husband Christian. The PSA can be viewed online here: http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/images/NAA%20QT1.mov You can help raise money for NAA's Research and Family Care Programs just by searching the web! Each time you use the GoodSearch search engine at http://www.goodsearch.com NAA will receive a penny!Just go to GoodSearch and choose NAA as your charity to support! NAA's Faces of Autism 2008 Calendar Now Only

$8! Our 2008 calendar featuring the winners of our annual photo contest is now available in our online store. Thank you to the hundreds of parents who submitted photographs and shared the beauty of their children with us. With each month that passes, a new face of hope will emerge. The Faces of Autism

calendar spawns a sort of inner hope that could only come from the eyes and the smiles of the children we call our own. Twelve different faces, our favorite sponsors and inspiring messages on each page make this the calendar specially designed for the autism community. Proceeds benefit autism research, advocacy and family care programs through NAA. Order yours today as a gift for yourself or someone you love. Just click here, and thank you for your continued support. http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/proddetail.php?prod=2008Calendar IN THE NEWS ABC Drama Takes on Science and Parents By EDWARD WYATT LOS ANGELES — A new legal drama making its debut this month on ABC is stepping into a subject that is the

source of heated debate among some parents — the relationship between autism and childhood vaccines — and seemingly coming down on the side that has been all but dismissed by prominent scientific organizations. The drama, “Eli Stone,” scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. on Jan. 31, centers on a lawyer who begins having visions that cause him to question his life’s work defending large corporations, including a pharmaceutical company that makes vaccines. The title character of “Eli Stone,” adopting the message of his visions to fight for the little guy, takes his first case: suing his former client on behalf of the mother of an autistic child who believes a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused her son’s autism. For the last decade some parents and advocates for autistic children have championed the theory that a

mercury-based vaccine preservative called thimerosal, developed in the late 1920s and used in many childhood vaccines until about seven years ago, is a primary cause of autism in young children. Autism often is diagnosed in children between their first and fourth years, during the time that many children begin receiving regular rounds of vaccinations. But reams of scientific studies by the leading American health authorities have failed to establish a causal link between the preservative and autism. Since the preservative was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, autism rates have not declined. While police and legal dramas often use ripped-from-the-headlines topics as the basis of episodes, rarely do broadcast networks allow themselves to stray into the middle of heated debates that contain such emotional

touchstones for large segments of their audience, if only because another big segment of a network’s audience is likely to be on the other side of the debate. With “Eli Stone,” however, neither ABC nor its ABC Studios production unit has expressed any qualms about the story, according to Greg Berlanti, a co-creator and an executive producer of the series, who said he believed that the script showed both sides of the argument. “I think they wanted us to do our homework about all of it, which we did,” he said. But the script also takes several liberties that could leave viewers believing that the debate over thimerosal — which in the program’s script is given the fictional name mercuritol — is far from scientifically settled. Through a spokeswoman, ABC declined to offer an executive to discuss the show. The issue is a potentially delicate one for ABC. Eli Lilly & Company, which developed thimerosal, and the two companies that now make the bulk of childhood vaccines used in the United States, GlaxoKline and Sanofi-Aventis, spent an estimated $138 million for advertising on ABC last year, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, though little to none of it was spent advertising vaccines. Representatives of all three companies expressed dismay about the series, of which they said they were unaware until called by a reporter. Pekarek, a spokeswoman for GlaxoKline, said the episode raised public-health concerns. “If parents watching this fictional series make that incorrect conclusion about a link” between vaccines and autism “and as a result choose not to vaccinate their own children, the consequences could be devastating,” she said.

Doctors have previously expressed fears that the popularity of the antivaccine movement could have adverse effects. In Britain a widely publicized — and since discredited — research paper published in 1998 started a scare over the safety of the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, drawing a potential link to autism. Though the premise of the research did not concern thimerosal, vaccination rates plunged in Britain. Over the next two to six years, outbreaks of measles soared in Britain and Ireland, causing at least three deaths and hundreds of children to be hospitalized. Among the organizations that have studied possible links between autism and the preservative in vaccines are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Institute of Medicine, the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Each of them has

largely dismissed the idea that thimerosal causes or contributes to autism, and five major studies have found no link. Since 2001, no vaccine routinely administered to children in the United States had more than half a microgram of mercury, about the amount found in an infant’s daily supply of breast milk. But plenty of parents, as well as groups like SafeMinds, continue to say that a link exists. “We feel it is still an open question,” said Theresa Wrangham, president of SafeMinds, a nonprofit parent organization. Their position has been supported in recent years by some members of Congress and by public advocates including F. Kennedy Jr. The initial episode of "Eli Stone" posits that the child received a flu vaccine containing the preservative; in recent years vaccine makers have produced new versions of the flu

vaccine for children that do not contain the mercury-based preservative. “Is there proof that mercuritol causes autism?,” Eli Stone says to the jury in summing up his lawsuit against the vaccine maker. “Yes,” he says. “Is that proof direct or incontrovertible proof? No. But ask yourself if you’ve ever believed in anything or anyone without absolute proof.” The script also draws a parallel with research linking smoking and cancer, saying three decades passed between the first lawsuit charging a connection and the first jury award against a tobacco company. After the dramatic courtroom revelation that the chief executive of the vaccine maker did not allow his daughter’s pediatrician to give her the company’s vaccine, the jury in “Eli Stone” awards the mother $5.2 million. (In each episode Eli Stone takes on a different cause; in other episodes sent to television reviewers for

preview, he wages court battles against a pesticide maker and a priest.) In the last two years Mr. Berlanti, who created “Eli Stone” with Marc Guggenheim, has become a major contributor to ABC’s primetime lineup. He also is an executive producer of “Brother & Sisters” and “Dirty Sexy Money.” Mr. Guggenheim is a lawyer who has worked on several law-related series, including “The Practice” and “Law & Order.” In interviews both men said they did not have any personal ties to the subject of autism and childhood vaccines. Mr. Guggenheim, who has two young children, said he had questioned his pediatrician about the number of vaccines his children were receiving. “I haven’t vaccinated them as aggressively as I could,” he said. Both of the producers also said that they wanted “Eli Stone” to provoke conversation.

“A lot of TV these days is not talking about the same things that the nightly news is talking about,” Mr. Berlanti said. “As a show, we want to keep the conversation going after people turn off the television.” The Little Shop of Hope Winter Clearance Sale Starts Tomorrow. Save 20% on everything in our store! Use the coupon code "winter" to receive your discount. Visit NAA's Little Shop of Hope Today! http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/categories.php?cat=42

The National Autism Association is a non-profit organization. Your purchase in our online store generates proceeds for autism research and family-care programs. Thank you for your support! This publication is the property of the National Autism Association. Please contact NAA with any questions, concerns, or comments at naa@.... Articles, photographs, etc. can be submitted to Fournier at wendy@.... To receive NAA News and Views, sign up for our free membership at http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/join.php. Think Autism. Think Cure. is a registered trademark of the National Autism Association. Think Autism. Think Cure. ® Click here to visit our website Forward email This email was sent to egerpatt@..., by naa@... Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. Email Marketing by National Autism Association | 1330 W. Schatz Lane | Nixa | MO | 65714