A Shout Out for New Blogger TJ Burke

SAY IT LIKE IT IS is the title of the new blog by Fredericton-Nashwaaksis MLA and New Brunswick Justice Minister and Attorney General TJ Burke. I commend Minister Burke for stepping out from behind the curtains of office and layers of bureaucracy to communicate directly with the people of New Brunswick. It may not surprise too many here in New Brunswick that I have taken advantage of Minister Burke's venture into the blogosphere to comment on his government's Transformational Change agenda and how it might impact on the lives of persons with autism disorders in New Brunswick.

Welcome to the blogosphere Minister Burke!

autism

Autism in Canada - Straight Talk In A Letter to the Editor

With all the heated disputes over vaccines and autism one finds on the internet, and all the neurodiversity neurononsense, it is refreshing to find a letter to the editor of an online paper which gets straight to the point and tells the truth about autism in Canada. Treatment helps autistic children and their families. And our governments have been heartless and cruel in denying access to treatment. Thank you for speaking up and offering some straight talk Penny Berns.

Autism treatment helps

Letter
Published: Sunday, June 17, 2007

In Quebec, parents of autistic children are left out in the cold. The government adamantly refuses to pay for treatment that it claims has not been proven 100 per cent to work.

How heartless and cruel to deny these parents, who already have so much on their plate. Child autism is on the rise, and they and their parents need help.

Some parents and grandparents say they have had to sell their homes and go into debt to give their autistic children/grandchildren early-intervention treatments, since Quebec refuses to pay. The earlier it's treated the better the results - often big, positive changes in children.

It's ironic that some in the U.S. envy Canada's medicare system. Now the shoe is on the other foot. A friend's grandson in New Jersey was diagnosed with autism at 20 months of age and she told me that the state, by law, has to provide - free - every available therapy to autistic children; everything from water exercises to speech therapy to ortho-therapy. The parents are already seeing big strides.

Penny Berns

Dollard des Ormeaux

No Legitimate Public Interest in Autism Case?

"That's the position of your client, the government of Ontario? That the public has no legitimate concern or interest in the degree the Charter protects vulnerable and disadvantaged people?"

- Ontario Supreme Court Justice Maurice Cullity, questioning Ontario government lawyer Robert Charney in a costs hearing involving parents suing the government for treatment coverage of their autistic children.

http://www.thestar.com/article/224246, June 11 2007
http://www.thestar.com/article/223824, June 11 2007

Put ABA back in HB 1224 - A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

The attached excerpt and link are from Put ABA back in HB 1224 on Pete's blog A Perfectly Cromulent Blog Pop culture related smart-assery . The article is written in the blogger's irrevent style and is a textbook example of the need to include specific reference to ABA in legislation governing provision of health care coverage for autism. Whether it is Canada or Texas governments and lobbyists do not want legislation to require that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) be covered as a health care intervention for autism. Even though ABA is THE proven effective intervention for autism, even though autism reates are soaring, and even though studies document huge long term savings to governments and society ABA is still resisted while almost any other treatment for any other ailment receives coverage. Pete's commentary is very well written, gets to the point and tells a tale of government unresponsiveness to autism which is as true of the Government of Canada as it is of the Government of Texas.


"Which is what makes the amendment to HB 1224 so maddening. After all, if I was feeling a little down in the dumps, my health plan would cheerfully cover the cost of my happy pills. If I drunkenly jawed off to Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović in a Zagreb bar and he broke my jaw, insurance would cover the emergency room visit and my subsequent weeks of pain meds. Hell, if I was an 80-year old man having trouble getting a goddamned hard-on, insurance would cover my boner pills, but therapy to help my daughter become a functional and productive member of society and not just another ward of the state after her parents die? We can apparently fuck right off.

So we're choosing to tell our daughter's story now, after being quiet about it for the last 16 months: to emphasize how important it is that this bill pass in its original form. If it seems opportunistic or self-serving, well...there's not much I can say about that, except that things like ABA and other therapy programs would seem to be the point of insurance: to insure the well-being of these kids who otherwise would be without hope for a future.

Finally, the only thing that really gave me pause about posting this was something that was said to me about the possibility SWSNBN might read this later on in her life and be mortified. My only response to that is this: I'm not a religious person, so prayer is out of the question, but I hope beyond anything I have ever hoped in my miserable life that my daughter, at some point in the future, is able to read this blog and yell at her father about it. I want that so badly it physically hurts."

http://www.whiterose.org/pete/blog/archives/010441.html