Legislation to reauthorize and increase the funding for the federal program created by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) to promote autism surveillance and research passed the House of Representatives today.

    “We cannot sit idle and allow another generation to be silenced by autism,” said Smith, who serves as co-chair of the Coalition for Autism Research and Education (CARE). “Autism is the nation’s fastest-growing developmental disability, affecting 1 out of every 166 children born in the U.S. And despite the progress we have made, those numbers continue to rise. The only way we can reverse this trend is through a continued extensive federal effort.” 

    “The Combating Autism Act of 2005” (S. 843) – which passed the House today by voice vote – is a comprehensive autism bill that would authorize $945 million in federal funds for autism research, treatments and education. The bill reauthorizes and increases funding for Rep. Smith’s program created under the Children's Health Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-310) which provided for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to establish regional centers of excellence in autism and pervasive developmental disabilities epidemiology to collect and analyze information on the incidence, prevalence, correlates and causes of such developmental disabilities. 

    “Since we created the Centers of Excellence in autism, our understanding of the disability has vastly increased. It is absolutely essential that we continue to build on that knowledge and parlay that into new treatment and prevention programs,” said Smith. 

    Autism is a complex developmental disability that affects the normal functioning of the brain, which results in developmental problems that hold back an afflicted individual’s ability to interact socially and limits the individual’s communication skills. There has been a steep increase in autism rates in the US. Just 10 years ago the rate was 1 in 500. The most recent prevalent data indicates that there are an estimated 1.77 million families nationwide affected by autism.

    Smith has been on the forefront of the Congressional effort to address autism for years. Not only did he author the legislation to create the CDC Centers of Excellence in autism, but he authored a provision included in the Fiscal Year 2007 Department of Defense (DOD) Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5631) that allocates $7.5 million into an Army research account for the sole purpose of improving treatment and intervention of children with autism. He also included two autism provisions in his Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007 (H.R. 2601)–one of which established a study of the prevalence of autism among Foreign Service dependents and the services available to those children and the another that asks the Secretary to work with UNICEF to provide for the first study of the incidence of autism worldwide.

    Smith also authored the Teacher Education for Autistic Children Act of 2005 (H.R. 4059), which amends the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to require assisted local educational agencies to report on autism early intervention activities and personnel training. He led the fight to get the CDC and NIH to document incidents of autism in New Jersey.

    “Establishing effective treatment and prevention strategies for autism is a goal we must meet and certainly not one to be shortchanged. The investment in this bill will move us closer to that goal than we have ever been,” said Smith.

    Specifically, the “The Combating Autism Act of 2005” would require the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand, intensify and coordinate autism-related research and to conduct an agency-wide study of research centers of excellence. It also would facilitate the creation of state-level agencies to serve as clearinghouses for public information; reauthorize the successful Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee; and include provisions to improve the early screening, diagnosis, interventions and treatments for autism.

    Smith praised the commitment exemplified by the legislation, but also added that work to find the causes–including significant study into possible environmental triggers –and treatments for autism must go on. 

    “While we have significantly increased our government’s commitment to surveillance and biomedical research in the last decade in an effort to find a cause or cure, it is incumbent upon us to act now to reauthorize, intensify and expand those and other efforts to determine the causes of autism as well as identify individuals struggling with autism and to provide them with more effective care and treatments,” said Smith.