TOMORROW Tues 8/3/10: U.S Senate committee hearing on enviro causes of autism

[Guest guest]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing & Hearing_id=1a\

b3cf42-802a-23ad-4a3a-686da83bf6d0

Subcommittee on Children’s Health hearing entitled, " State of Research

on Potential Environmental Health Factors with Autism and Related

Neurodevelopment Disorders. "

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

10:00 AM EDT

EPW Hearing Room - 406 Dirksen

Subcommittee members: Amy Klobuchar (Chairman), Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley,

Arlen Specter, Lamar (Ranking Member), Vitter

Witnesses

Opening Remarks

Panel 1

Dr. Anastas

Assistant Administrator, Office of Research and Development

United States Environmental Protection Agency

Birnbaum, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., A.T.S.

Director, National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and

National Toxicology Program

National Institutes of Health, United States Department of Health and

Human Services

Panel 2

Issac N. Pessah Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences, College of Veterinary

Medicine, Director, UC Children’s Center for Environmental Health

and Disease Prevention

University of California, , Department of Molecular Biosciences

Bruce P. Lanphear MD, MPH

Senior Scientist, Child & Family Research Institute, Professor, Simon

Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Adjunct Professor, Cincinnati

Children's Hospital Medical Center

Moen

Parent

Senators to review research on autism's enviro causes

Environment and Energy Daily

August 2, 2010

Gayathri Vaidyanathan, E & E reporter

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will meet tomorrow

to probe the state of research into the environmental causes of autism

and other neurodevelopment disorders.

The Children's Health Subcommittee will hear from U.S. EPA and

National Institutes of Health officials on the progress of federally

funded work into the causes of autism and other development disorders of

the brain.

It is likely that the hearing will be a step toward reauthorizing the

2006 Combating Autism Act, which is set to expire in 2011.

Autism is thought to result from a combination of genetic and

environmental factors. While the interaction of genes and mutations is

somewhat known by now, little work has been done on potential

environmental risk factors. There are likely to be many disparate causes

leading to autism.

The incidence of autism spectrum disorders, or ASDs, is increasing in

the United States , with one in every 110 children affected. Rates of

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in children are also

rising -- nearly 4.5 million children between 3 and 17 years of age have

it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The subpanel will hear from Isaac Pessah, director of the University

of California , , Children's Center for Environmental Health and

Disease Prevention, which has received $7.5 million from EPA since 2007

for research to investigate possible environmental causes.

UC is working on a project called MARBLES (Markers of Autism

Risk in Babies -- Learning Early Signs) to identify early predictors of

autism, whether genetic, environmental or immunologic. According to the

project proposal submitted to EPA, the project will look at whether

autistic children are differently exposed to metals, pesticides,

polybrominated diphenylethers and other chemicals.

The work is a corollary to a long-term study called CHARGE in which UC

researchers are casting a wide net to catch possible environmental

contributors in a group of 2- to 5-year-old autistic children. They are

screening for pesticides, metals, flame retardant compounds, viruses and

bacteria and pharmaceuticals.

UC and other groups are also receiving money from NIH's National

Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and National Toxicology

Program, and the subcommittee will hear from the program's director,

Birnbaum.

NIH is funding a study together with the nonprofit Autism Speaks that

is enrolling mothers who already have one autistic child and are again

pregnant to study exposures during fetal development.

The annual cost of caring for people with autism is $35 billion,

according to Geraldine Dawson, chief scientific officer at Autism Speaks.

NIH has provided nearly $225 million for research, which Dawsom called

miniscule. The funding comes from the Combating Autism Act, which

authorized $7 billion for autism-related work including screening,

education, intervention and research.

" President Obama has listed autism as one of three health concerns to

be combated in the United States , " Dawson said. " The current act is a

step in the right direction, but due to the magnitude of the public

health challenge that autism presents, we need a great deal more funding. "

The rate of children with the disease has risen by 600 percent in the

last decade, a number so dramatic it cannot be explained solely by

better diagnosis, Dawson said.

Schedule: The hearing is tomorrow at 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.

Witnesses: Anastas, assistant administrator of the Office of

Research and Development, U.S. EPA; Birnbaum, NIH's director of

the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and National

Toxicology Program; Isaac Pessah, director of the UC Children's

Center for Environmental Health and Disease Prevention; Bruce Lanphear,

senior scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute; and

Moen, parent.