Illinois Law Requires Health Insurers To Cover Autism Treatments

Illinois is poised to become a North American autism treatment leader by requiring insurers to provide coverage, up to $36,000, for autism treatments. CBS2Chicago reports that the Illinois legislation has passed and is awaiting the signature of Governor Rod Blagojevich who applauded the passage of the legislation and who fought for it over the past year.

Here in Canada we have a public health care system but autism treatment is not dealt with by our federal or provincial health departments. Our federal Health Ministers have provided no meaningful assistance or leadership on autism treatment and our provincial governments fund autism treatments, to different degrees, as social services not as medical treatments.

Provincial governments provided autism treatment as a social service to strengthen their positions before the Supreme Court of Canada in the Auton case where the SCC decided that ABA autism treatment was not medically necessary treatment, as defined by the provincial legislature, and for that reason no discrimination contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights arose. The Court's decision was essentially a bow of deference to the policy making authority of legislatures.

New Brunswick was one of the provinces which adopted the social services characterization autism treatment as the Auton case made its way to the Supreme Court. Here the Department of Health had primary carriage of issues relating to autistic disorders and other autism spectrum disorders. On April 1, 2003 the Minister of Health announced some funding for autism programs in New Brunswick. Shortly thereafter the primary responsibility for autism "services" was transferred to the Department of Family and Community Services (now called the Department of Social Development) where it remains to this day.

Illinois and Governor Blagojevich deserve great credit for their honest and determined effort to provide autism treatment coverage for Illinois children with autism spectrum disorders. Autism treatment is a health and medical treatment not a social service. That autism reality, abandoned in Canada for legal strategic reasons is confirmed in this Illinois legislation

autism

An Autism Question for the Hon. Stephane Dion

2007-06-05

The Hon. Stephane Dion, P.C., M.P.
Leader of the Official Opposition
Liberal Party of Canada

Dear Mr. Dion

An Autism Question

I am the father of two sons one of whom has classic Autism Disorder, with profound developmental delays, and I have been an autism advocate for the last eight years. This year I watched hopefully, but with no illusions, as Liberal MP Shawn Murphy of Charlottetown introduced Bill C-304, a Private Member's bill, which would called for amendment of the Canada Health Act to provide coverage for autism treatments. As expected, Bill C-304 was defeated by the governing Conservative Party and its partner, the Bloc Quebecois. The Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party both voted, by and large, in support of Bill C-304. You personally cast a vote in support of the Bill.

Autism is a serious neurological disorder which affects 1 in 150 Canadians, including 1 in 94 male Canadians. Persons with an autism disorder can display a wide range of deficits including intellectual, communication, behavioural and social deficits. While no known cure exists, a treatment which has been empirically demonstrated in hundreds of studies to decrease the negative autism deficits, and in some cases virtually eliminate, these deficits exists. Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) has been demonstrated to improve the abilities in all these areas and improve the quality of life of autistic persons in hundreds of studies. Effective, early and intensive intervention with ABA, in addition to being effective in treating autistic children, has also been shown to save governments very substantial sums of money in provision of government services over the life of an autistic person.

Despite these facts, governments in Canada have an atrocious record in dealing with the Autism Crisis which confronts Canada and in helping these very vulnerable people. In British Columbia and Ontario governing parties reversed election campaign promises to provide medicare coverage for autism choosing instead to spend hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars to fight in court the parents of autistic children they had pledged to help. Mr. Dion I hope that you will not follow these shameful precedents, I hope you will not forget your vote in support of Bill C-304.

Mr. Dion, will you tell me, and other parents and caregivers of autistic children and persons, if the Liberal Party of Canada will, once elected, introduce legislation in the first year of your taking office as Prime Minister, to include autism treatment in medicare for all Canadians with autism regardless of residence and regardless of income?

Respectfully,


Harold L Doherty
Fredericton
New Brunswick

cc The Canadian Public

Mayo Clinic - No Evidence to Support Chelation Autism Treatment - Can Be Dangerous

In this comment Dr. Hoecker of the Mayo Clinic states that there is no evidence to support Chelation as an autism treatment. Chelation can be dangerous - even deadly.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/autism-treatment/AN01488


There's no scientific evidence that chelation therapy is an effective autism treatment.

In recent years, some doctors and parents have recommended chelation therapy as a potential treatment for autism. Proponents believe that autism is caused by mercury exposure, such as from childhood vaccines. Chelation therapy supposedly removes mercury from the body, which cures autism.

But extensive studies have revealed no evidence of a link between mercury exposure and autism. In addition, chelation therapy is not approved as an autism treatment and can be associated with serious side effects, including liver and kidney damage that can result in death.

There is no cure for autism. As a result, unproven alternative therapies are often suggested to parents who — frustrated by the lack of effective medical treatment for autism — are desperate to find something that will help their children. However, in clinical studies, these alternative therapies are usually found to be ineffective and sometimes harmful. Talk to your son's doctor before starting any alternative autism treatment.

Although no cure for autism exists, early behavioral and educational interventions can help children with autism improve their communication and social skills.

Early treatment of autism hinges on genetic discoveries

Much attention has been paid to purported environmental causes of autism. Controversy has raged over both the MMR vaccine itself and the use of thimerosal, a mercury based preservative used in vaccines as a potential cause of autism.

As prominent a figue as Robert Kennedy Jr has pushed the thimerosal theory before the US Congress and the world. There is however precious little scientific support to date for the vaccine/thimerosal theories. Recent environmental theories include Lyme Disease and television as possible causes of autism.

Notwithstanding the focus on potential environmental causes of autism it is heartening to read that research continues on genetic factors. Genetic research is an important element to the early identification and treatment of autism including development of specific treatments for individual autistic persons as discussed in a very readable article by Dr. John Bernard, president of the Children’s Research Institute, published in the Columbus Dispatch:


"Identical twins have identical genes, while fraternal twins are genetically similar, but not identical. When identical twins have autism, both are affected about 60 percent of the time, whereas fraternal twins are both affected only about 5 percent of the time.

These findings strongly suggest a genetic basis for many cases of autism.

But current thinking is that autism spectrum disorders do not result from genetic factors alone. It is likely that unknown environmental factors also are involved, perhaps as a result of genetic susceptibility.

It is probable that each of the autism spectrum disorders is associated with a specific genetic abnormality. However, scientists involved in the search for specific genetic abnormalities in autism are challenged by the complex variability of individual cases.

Unless individual children can be accurately and specifically classified within the autism spectrum, the search for underlying genes is clouded. Fortunately, specific genetic abnormalities are now being discovered for some of the rare and distinctive types of autism spectrum disorders.

Discovering specific genetic abnormalities associated with autism spectrum disorders might help detect them earlier in life than currently is possible.

Children then could receive customized treatment programs at the earliest possible age, when the prospect for success is best. It is also possible that drug treatments can be designed by researchers to specifically modify the genetic abnormality involved. "

http://www.dispatch.com/science/science.php?story=dispatch/2007/01/16/20070116-D5-04.html