In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee and research priorities.
RFK Jr. has stacked it with his own type of people.
Daisy Yuhas at The Transmitter:Scientists have expressed concerns about last week’s meeting of the newest Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), raising questions about the meeting’s content, process and impact on future U.S. federal funding for autism research.
“The day was slightly unhinged,” says David Mandell, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and former IACC member, who attended the public meeting virtually.
U.S. federal law mandates that the IACC—which coordinates the Department of Health and Human Services’ efforts on autism—convene at least twice annually to develop a strategic plan for autism research. But the latest IACC gathering on 28 April did not deliver on that goal, according to Mandell and other former committee members who listened to the meeting.
Instead, the committee pushed forward three policy proposals in a way that may have violated federal law, according to Mandell and statements by the Autism Science Foundation and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
The main topics in these proposals—profound autism, challenging medical comorbidities and the dangers of wandering and elopement—are worthy of discussion and policy change, Mandell says. “I can make common cause with some of the concerns and ideas that were expressed.”
But completely absent from the agenda was any development of a strategic plan “for conduct of, and support for, autism spectrum disorder research” as stipulated by the Autism CARES Act, former IACC member Alycia Halladay, chief science officer of the Autism Science Foundation, told The Transmitter.
