Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 18:32:16 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199905052232.SAA07093@belmonte.ne.mediaone.net>
From: belmonte@mit.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: senator@kennedy.senate.gov
Subject: support S. 512

Dear Senator Kennedy:

I write as your constituent to express my support for S. 512, the Advancement
in Pediatric Autism Research Act.  The bill was previously introduced in the
105th Congress as S.2263.  It now boasts nineteen co-sponsors, and I hope that
you'll consider becoming the twentieth.  I note that the bill has been
referred to the Committe on Labor and Human Resources, of which you are a
member.

S.2263 is the first bill to target autism research specifically.  Autism is a
pervasive developmental disorder affecting one in five hundred to a thousand
children born in the United States.  Despite this prevalence and the enormous
social and economic costs of caring for people with autism, until recently
autism has been much less publicized than other diseases of children.

Autism was quite well known in my family, however: I grew up with an autistic
brother, and my niece was recently diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental
Disorder, a mild variant of autism.  When I was in graduate school, I studied
autism because I found it so fascinating, so rewarding, and of course, so
relevant to people whom I loved.  I currently do neurological research at
McLean Hospital in Belmont, just outside Boston.  But because of the dearth of
funding for autism research, and particularly for centers specializing in
autism research, I've been forced to do my work on schizophrenia.  I do hope
to get back to autism in the future, as do others.  But opening up the field
of autism research will require a significant investment by Congress, via the
National Institutes of Health, in autism funding.

In the long run, such an investment would be a cost-reducing measure: the cost
of providing essential services and support to Americans with autism in
perpetuity far exceeds the cost of autism research.

This is an exciting time for research on the development and workings of the
human brain.  We are at a confluence of genetics, neurology, psychiatry, and
biochemistry.  It's up to us to make the most of this opportunity for
discovery.