Let me start the question with you. Do you subscribe to the 
theory that part of the problems of kids getting autism is 
caused by the vaccine?
    Dr. Cook. I guess that is a direct question to me, having 
evaded that.
    Mr. Burton. Yes.
    Dr. Cook. I have heard more today than I knew before I 
came. I did not specifically address that because I have not 
directly studied the question.
    As I see the data at this point, the data do not support 
the idea that vaccines cause autism. As someone who studied 
secretin as an example, I realize that I cannot prove the 
absence of something. For example, on secretin, all I can say 
is that I have proved the absence of it for myself; if someone 
else wants to come and only treat a certain kind of child in a 
certain kind of setting, then perhaps our work will have helped 
them.
    Mr. Burton. What would you think, Doctor, of taking a hard 
look at the conclusions that Dr. Wakefield and Professor 
O'Leary and Dr. Singh came to with their research? I know you 
work on genetics, but what would you think about looking at 
their research?
    Dr. Cook. Well, in some ways, I work in the area of 
clinical trials, so I can comment on why they fail to convince 
me that there is a connection. They have raised the possibility 
of a connection, but there are several areas in their logic 
that do not come together. It may be that if they were up here, 
they would say, yes, those are gaps that we have to fill--but I 
am concerned that in the presentations, starting with the 
original paper and today, they have not sufficiently 
highlighted where the gaps are, so the logic falls apart in a 
few places.
    First of all, if we know that we have prevented a lot of 
autism by preventing rubella-caused autism, which was a 
prevalent cause 20 or 30 years ago, as Dr. Chess showed, then 
why is it now MMR, and all of a sudden, it is measles?
    Now, if someone is so pleased--and I must say it is fairly 
fancy methodology in terms of pulling the measles virus out--
why not show that they can pull the measles virus out from the 
vaccine, differentiated genetically from the measles virus that 
would occur without the vaccine?
    These are holes, and my main thing is what I hear from the 
positive side is an almost total lack of self-criticism, OK? 
That is a key point----
    Mr. Burton. But----
    Dr. Cook [continuing]. That is a key point of the 
scientific method.
    Mr. Burton. But you do not think that their research is 
worth taking a look at?
    Dr. Cook. Oh, I think their research is very interesting, 
and I think it is particularly interesting to what I think--and 
this is an interesting epidemiological question--if there is 
autistic enterocolitis--and I think they have interesting 
data--how much of the total group of autism is it? From what I 
have seen, it would not be nearly enough of autism to account 
for an increase in prevalence.
    Mr. Burton. You heard the--and I am going to go down the 
line with the rest of you in just a minute----
    Dr. Cook. If I have a child who is vomiting, I very much 
agree with the----
    Mr. Burton [continuing]. You heard the testimony of the 
four parents as well as the testimony I gave about our 
grandson; and within just a day of their getting these shots, 
their temperatures went up, and they started the violent 
reactions, and it got worse. How would you account for that? Is 
that just a coincidence, or what?
    Dr. Cook. Well, if I am to take that as a reason for their 
autism to be caused, then I will agree with the parents who 
told me their child had autism because they took a 2-day trip, 
leaving the child with very good grandparents; they came back, 
and the child had autism suddenly. Am I supposed to now tell 
them, yes, you are right, because you see the connection--
because of a potential coincidence--you are right and caused it 
by taking 2 days off and leaving your child in very loving 
hands?
    I think we have got to be very careful and use careful 
epidemiological approaches. Dr. Taylor has done the best 
epidemiological study. There is not another one on the other 
side. If there were, I would weight it--in fact, I would give 
more weight to a positive, well-done epidemiological study. We 
have only got one.
    Mr. Burton. Well, I am not a doctor, but it just seems to 
me that the scientific community ought to have their minds open 
to all possibilities as far as the causes of autism are 
concerned. From your testimony, you sounded like it is a gene 
problem, and the vaccines could not possibly be a contributing 
factor.
    Dr. Cook. No. They could, but the people who think they 
could, the people who want to raise the hypothesis--and I am 
someone who has spent a lot of effort testing other people's 
hypotheses--I think there is a lot of duty when people raise a 
hypothesis, including Dr. Wakefield, from GI studies, who raise 
an epidemiological hypothesis, I think it is his responsibility 
to test the hypothesis carefully. I have thrown out hypotheses 
that I quite loved, and they were great--they were not all 
genetic; some were immunological--but you have to go with the 
data. If I have the data, I will go with it.
    Mr. Burton. When you studied secretin, did you study more 
than one dose?
    Dr. Cook. No. As a matter of fact, before we did the study, 
there was a meeting which included people who were convinced 
that secretin worked who said it was one dose, and we used the 
dose it was supposed to be; we used porcine-derived secretin--
and now, all of a sudden, the hypothesis shifts. Now, the 
hypothesis shifted to multiple doses--that is fine. The people 
who think it is multiple doses and single doses now have to 
test it. And if we have helped to refine the hypothesis so they 
can do a better study and show that it works, then I am fine 
with that.
    I recognize that basically, science cannot disprove 
anything. It is really meant to--you have to actually set up a 
hypothesis to tear apart to accept the other one. That is what 
I mean by part of the self-criticism of the scientific method.
    So absolutely--if this gets turned around in particularly 
children with projectile vomiting--that is a very rare group of 
autism--but somebody with projectile vomiting, maybe 30 kids 
like that, secretin would work wonderfully.
    Mr. Burton. Dr. Hirtz, we were talking about the study at 
Brick Township, NJ. I do not know if you heard me ask the 
question of the doctor from the CDC earlier. Why would you 
think that the National Institutes of Health and CDC and others 
would go into Brick Township, NJ and look at all the 
environmental problems that may have caused the autism epidemic 
they have had there, and when the parents asked that they check 
to see if any of the vaccines had anything to do with it, why 
would you think the health agencies did not check that as well?
    Dr. Hirtz. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, I am not at all 
familiar with the study at Brick Township; that was conducted 
by the CDC, not the NIH, and I am afraid you will have to ask 
them questions about it.
    I would be glad to tell you about activities that the NIH 
is doing in this area, however, if you would like to hear some 
of them.
    Mr. Burton. What would you say about the NIH taking a hard 
look at the studies done by Dr. Wakefield, Dr. O'Leary, and Dr. 
Singh, and some of the theses that Dr. Megson espoused earlier?
    Dr. Hirtz. I think that examining scientific evidence is 
always a useful thing to do; there is nothing wrong with that. 
In terms of the vaccine issue, I would just like to say that 
you are right--we do need to keep our minds open. I do feel 
that at this time, the available, valid scientific evidence 
does not support that vaccine is a cause of autism.
    However----
    Mr. Burton. What bothers me about a lot of this is Dr. Cook 
and you say if there is a hypothesis that says this, it has to 
be proven before we will even take a hard look at it.
    Dr. Hirtz. No----
    Mr. Burton. Well, that is the impression that I am getting, 
and----
    Dr. Hirtz. May I finish?
    Mr. Burton [continuing]. Let me just finish. The problem is 
that there are a large number of children who have acquired 
this problem shortly after getting these vaccines, and when 
scientists and doctors from other parts of the world come up 
with a thesis, I think it is irresponsible to out-of-hand just 
discard that and say, well, that is something they have to 
further prove, because their hypothesis has not yet been 
proven. It seems to me that you say, hey, if there is a 
positive result there, if it looks like there may be something 
there, why don't we take a look at it, too, instead of keeping 
yourselves confined to one area?
    Dr. Hirtz. If you will let me finish, Mr. Chairman, I was 
going to tell you about all the efforts we are making to look 
at that. What I was going to say when I continued was that even 
though that is the case at the moment, we do take this very 
seriously, we take the concerns of the parents very seriously, 
and when we have reports like this and concerns like this, we 
do address them.
    We are taking three steps at the NIH, and we are 
undertaking three projects to look at the relationship of 
vaccines and autism. One of them is very immediate and is going 
to be done in the centers that now exist. The Child Health 
Network has Centers of Excellence in autism, and they have 
about 1,000 children enrolled. In conjunction with the Deafness 
and Communicative Disorders Institute and the CDC, they are 
going to look at the children who have regressed and look at 
their vaccine histories and study this issue, compare them to 
other children. That is going to be done as soon as possible, 
hopefully, this fiscal year.
    In addition to that study, something I have been working 
on, we are planning at the NIH to look at the very important 
issue of not only vaccines but risk factors for development of 
autism as well----
    Mr. Burton. I have had a number of people today testify 
from the health agencies that there is no scientific evidence 
that autism is related to vaccines. How do they know that?
    Dr. Hirtz. They do not.
    Mr. Burton. How do you know that? A vaccine is put out on 
the market, children all take it----
    Dr. Hirtz. On the----
    Mr. Burton [continuing]. Let me just finish--and there is 
an increase from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 400 or 500, so we have an 
epidemic on our hands; and yet the health agencies of this 
country are telling us there is no connection between these 
vaccinations and autism. How do you know?
    Dr. Hirtz. I do not know that there is no connection. What 
I know is that the evidence that has been reviewed by the 
British Medical Research Council and the epidemiologic evidence 
does not support a large-scale causation. But I still think----
    Mr. Burton. How do you know that?
    Dr. Hirtz [continuing]. But I still think that there are 
and there may be certain children who are susceptible, and that 
is what we have to go after. It is very important that we look 
for why children develop autism and whether there might be a 
small minority of children who have some susceptibility, and we 
are not ruling that out.
    Mr. Burton. Yes. One of the things that concerns me--and 
pharmaceutical companies are extremely important; they employ 
an awful lot of people in my district and in Indiana; we have 
some great pharmaceutical companies that have saved a lot of 
lives and probably kept epidemics from happening around the 
world, there is no question about that--but there are so many 
people who work at CDC, HHS, NIH, and the other health agencies 
who have some kind of connection to the pharmaceutical 
companies and are on these advisory boards, that it causes one 
to wonder whether there is thorough research going into these 
things before they are approved.
    Does that concern you at all?
    Dr. Hirtz. At the NIH, we do not really deal with the 
approval process of the vaccines. Other agencies can tell you 
more about how they deal with that.
    What I am really concerned about--it is hard for me to 
convey to you that we really--there is nothing I would not do 
to stop autism from occurring and to stop children from 
developing this order, but I----
    Mr. Burton. Well, then, what I would suggest is that we are 
going to get all of these studies--I am going to get them--and 
we are going to send them to all the health agencies, and I 
want the health agencies to write back and tell me, after they 
do some research, whether or not they feel there is any merit 
to these arguments. And I want them to look at--and I will get 
other Members of Congress to join me if necessary--I want them 
to look at Dr. Wakefield, Dr. O'Leary, Dr. Singh, Dr. Megson--
all of the doctors who have come here today with various 
solutions that have worked--Dr. Upledger with his cranial 
manipulation. Those things should all be looked at, because we 
are giving the health agencies in this country billions and 
billions and billions of dollars, and for them not to look at 
every avenue for possible treatment for these things I think 
would be wrong.
    Let me just go down to the end of the table and give all of 
you a question--Drs. Rimland, Goldberg, Megson, Upledger, and 
Ms. Pratt.
    Do you think from what you have heard today and seen in 
your scientific research that there is a possibility that the 
vaccines are contributing to the increase in autism?
    Mr. Rimland. There is not only a possibility, there is an 
extremely high likelihood.
    Mr. Burton. Would you pull the mic closer?
    Mr. Rimland. There is not only the possibility, there is an 
extremely high likelihood from all the evidence available, 
including the so-called anecdotal evidence that people like to 
snicker at, but which is really very important evidence, from 
the kind of evidence that Dr. Wakefield submitted, from the 
rise in autism at the time of initiation of the MMR, the time 
of the rise of the epidemic, the data that I provided in my 
handout which shows that late-onset autism started at just 
about the same time that the MMR was initiated. There is just a 
world of evidence that leads me to think that it is extremely 
likely that when the final answer is known, if it is ever 
known, the MMR will be strongly implicated as an important 
cause of autism.
    Mr. Burton. Dr. Goldberg.
    Dr. Goldberg. With caution as I say this, as a practicing 
pediatrician, I have vaccinated children in my practice whom I 
considered high-risk--I have literally had a godchild with one 
foot in autism and one foot out and vaccinated her along the 
way. As I stated this morning, I however try to practice 
vaccination policies that I was taught 20, 30 years ago--you do 
not vaccinate an ill child; you use certain plans; I never gave 
a child a hepatitis B shot in the nursery yet. But I think that 
the effort to solve autism gets distracted by the fact that we 
do have a lot of children triggered off by some time 
correlation to the vaccine.
    As I mentioned in my testimony, I think that if we are 
going to understand this, we need to step back and figure out 
why there is a wealth of science that says, hey, the vaccines 
do not create this or cause it, and then we suddenly have this 
epidemic going on, and I really believe the way it will come 
out in the end, whether we do it in the next 6 or 8 months or 
in 10 years, is going to be that this will all tie in from the 
eighties and nineties with what is going on in our population 
and it is not specifically the vaccines, but the vaccines are 
playing a role in it.
    Mr. Burton. Would play a role in it.
    Dr. Goldberg. Pardon?
    Mr. Burton. The vaccine would play a role.
    Dr. Goldberg. Yes, the vaccines would play a role. But we 
need to understand why, suddenly, a population has become 
susceptible to those when they did so much good along the way.
    Mr. Burton. Dr. Megson.
    Dr. Megson. I am seeing more and more families that are 
completely devastated. I know one mother who has been very 
active in the parent support group in our local community has 
had three children. The oldest has severe dyslexia/ADD; the 
second one died of SIDS within 24 hours of DPT; and the third 
one is autistic.
    If my theories are correct, there is an organ in the neck 
at the base of the main artery to the brain called the carotid 
body, and we are disconnecting the pathway. When the oxygen-
level in the blood decreases in the carotid body, there is a 
signal sent to the respiratory center in the brainstem to 
increase breathing rates, and we are disconnecting that 
pathway.
    Recently they discovered that, oh, if you put children down 
to sleep on their backs, they do not die of SIDS. I think we 
really need to look at this.
    I do not want to be here. I have never gone against the 
grain. I am not a vaccine researcher. But once I discovered 
some of these connections, I do not think any of us can turn 
our backs. So many families are devastated.
    Mr. Burton. Thank you.
    Dr. Upledger.
    Dr. Upledger. I have to say yes, I do. As I stated earlier, 
I think there is a group of autistic children--and by no means 
do I say all autistic children--whose problems are due to 
membrane dysfunction. But I have learned to understand that a 
significant number of them do, and I can easily differentiate 
autism from childhood schizophrenia just based on the feel of 
the membranes.
    I think that the membrane is a place where several factors 
may go, and it can be, as I said, a fever due to a virus, it 
can be a vaccine reaction, it can be a traumatic delivery--it 
can be anything that creates a change in the membrane 
flexibility and growth accommodation.
    From the histories I have taken--and I have taken histories 
with autistic parents since 1975--it is more than coincidence 
as far as I am concerned. I do not know how many cases of 
anecdotes we need to consider that the anecdote has some 
validity, but it would appear to be that it is infinite. We 
still will not believe the anecdote. I happen to subscribe to 
the idea that if you study the anecdote, you might learn 
something.
    So I would go very strongly in favor of the idea that 
vaccines are potentially able to cause autism in terms of their 
effect on membranes. I think that membrane condition is 
probably largely influenced by genetic factors along with 
nutritional factors, along with toxic factors, and so on, so 
you have a susceptible membrane.
    I have opened up enough human heads that are not embalmed, 
that are maybe 4 or 5 hours old, and I can see the difference 
in the membranes, and when you look at the diagnoses, you begin 
to put 2 and 2 together.
    I think one of the major things that has happened in 
medicine is the meningeal membrane system has been given a very 
short shrift. It is a very important system. It has just come 
out recently--I cannot think of his name now, but a fellow from 
California, UC San Diego, I think, came out with evidence, very 
strong evidence, that 1 gram of dura mater membrane, which is a 
very small quantity of that membrane, carries 100 million 
single-domain magnetic crystals that are ferric.
    What does it take to change that? The brain itself has 5 
million per gram. Anything that interferes with electrical 
conduction or magnetic fields is going to screw up that brain 
function. When we stretch that base membrane laterally, why 
does the kid get better in terms of his emotion? Because I 
think we are improving the conditions under which his temporal 
lobes have to live. That is why. You can tear it all apart, and 
if you study temporal lobes, you can say, OK, temporal lobes 
cause autism. But what caused the temporal lobe, and what 
caused the membrane to not accommodate the temporal lobe? When 
you start looking at it that way, you start looking at multiple 
factors any one of which can be causal--and I put vaccine in 
that category.
    Mr. Burton. Thank you, Doctor.
    Dr. Pratt, do you have a comment?
    Ms. Pratt. I think it is a very hard issue, and from both 
the autism side of America and the Indiana Resource Center for 
Autism, our job is really to provide information for families. 
And it is very hard when you listen to very well-respected 
scientists and researchers like Dr. Cook, whom I have 
tremendous respect for--and I point him out because he is in 
Illinois, the State neighboring Indiana--it is very hard when 
you hear the testimony and the research that says there does 
not seem to be a link, and then, when you hear from the 
families their stories. Balancing that out is a very difficult 
thing, and I struggle with that, because I do not want all of 
us running down one path, hoping that, yes, at the end of that 
path is going to be a cure or the reason or whatever.
    I hope we can all keep our minds open to all possibilities. 
Again, to be an ethical and decent professional, I have to say 
to families that I am hearing some stories, and there is a 
possibility for it. Those families and the families that you 
have heard from today really cannot wait for the research to 
tell them conclusively that there is a relationship.
    I would say that in all likelihood, Congressman Burton, if 
your daughter had another child, she would take a very serious 
look at the usage of vaccinations with her third child, 
regardless of what the research tells her. That is the 
complexity of the issue.
    So, what you have heard over the last several hours today 
is a lot of different testimony and sometimes conflicting 
testimony, and I hope that what we will all focus on is trying 
to uncover the complex nature and perhaps the complex causes 
behind autism.
    Mr. Burton. Thank you.
    Let me just ask Dr. Cook one more question, and then I want 
to make a couple of announcements before we conclude.
    Dr. Cook, how do you account for these parents and these 
doctors finding the measles virus in the guts of these kids who 
have had the MMR shot?
    Dr. Cook. I am very interested in that finding because I 
think it is a fascinating finding even if it applies to one in 
1,000 kids with autism. Each child is very valuable. So first 
of all, realize that Dr. Wakefield is talking about a very 
small group of autism, with documented pathology, with 
vomiting--which, as I said, is quite rare in autism. I think 
that is an interesting finding that needs to be followed up.
    The next step of that may not be a link with vaccines and 
autism; it may be something quite more important in 
understanding what is happening with autism. So that some of 
what was presented today, it was very good to see data ahead of 
time; it is rare, and it is nice of them to share it. There is 
something about their work, particularly seeing more controlled 
data than I have seen before, that is very interesting, and I 
will be paying quite a bit of attention to, because we need 
every clue that we can get.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Burton. Very good; 1 second.
    [Pause.]
    Mr. Burton. Let me just ask you a couple more questions, 
Dr. Cook. Where do you see the autism rates in the next 10 
years? Do you see them pretty close to where they are now, or 
do you see them increasing?
    Dr. Cook. I think if we are talking about from the 
perspective of school districts, they will continue to rise, 
because I think we are still underestimating across all school 
districts.
    In terms of the actual prevalence, meaning all the children 
who have always been out there suffering from this, I do not 
see it going up that high. What I see is appropriately--and 
this is a very important, I think almost civil rights 
movement--these kids and families are being heard now. But I do 
not see this as an epidemic in the sense of prevalence. I see 
it as an epidemic in terms of a wake-up call that lots of kids 
and families have been suffering for a long time.
    Mr. Burton. So you are saying the 1 in 10,000----
    Dr. Cook. It was never--I do not know----
    Mr. Burton [continuing]. It was always a lot higher than 
that?
    Dr. Cook. I do not know of a 1 in 10,000. I know that 2 to 
4 per 10,000 is what DSM3 said, which was 1980 to 1987. And 
1987 has been referred to as around the time of an increase. 
That is when we went from DSM3 to DSM3R. The reason is DSM3 
said the child had to have a pervasive lack of responsiveness. 
Now, I do not know who these kids were who had autism then, 
because every child with autism is related; they are just not 
related in the same ways. So now you have increased the 
definition as of 1987--and I think I have lost the question. I 
am sorry.
    Mr. Burton. It was about the projected increase in the next 
10 years.
    Dr. Cook. Right. So the most important thing about the 2 to 
4 per 10,000 estimates is that they were often done by, well, 
let us say someone has come in to a university clinic, and you 
estimate that against the population. What has happened, which 
is better epidemiology since then, is you go knocking on every 
door.
    So I have heard 1 in 500 referred to more than just autism, 
but the best study where they knocked on every door, half a 
million in Japan, found 1 in 500 for autism. So I do not think 
we are estimating it yet in terms of its impact.
    Mr. Burton. Do any of the rest of you have any projections 
or guesses on that?
    Mr. Rimland. In California, the increase started in 1977 
before the diagnostic changes were made, so the switch from 
DSM3 to DSM4 cannot even begin to account for that.
    Dr. Goldberg. If I can tie in a projection, unfortunately, 
I can remember discussions back, literally, in the mid-eighties 
with clinicians, and at that time, the CDC, the NIH and 
everyone was saying this new entity out there that we were 
calling ``chronic fatigue syndrome'' or whatever it was 
supposed to be did not exist, or was not in any big numbers, 
and as clinicians, we were saying we were going to see 1 to 3 
percent of the population. Well, now we are in the late 
nineties, the numbers are getting very close to that, and we 
are now talking 5 or 10 percent.
    I think that if this is the same crossover to the children 
as was seen in adults, you can make a prediction that in the 
next 5 to 10 years, you may hit 5 or 10 percent of our 
population or more.
    One of the most scary moments in my life recently, 
literally, was coming back on a flight from giving talks in 
Australia. I remember there was literally not a family who did 
not know a family who did not know a family that either had 
chronic fatigue syndrome, ADD, or autism. My thoughts on the 
flight coming back were, well, where is Australia--near the 
ozone hole--but my big concern was that that was going to be 
our country 5 or 10 years later. In the last month, I have 
literally had three families in--this is only a year and a half 
from that flight--telling me they do not know a family that 
does not know a family that does not know a family. This is a 
major crisis.
    Mr. Burton. Any other comments?
    [No response.]
    Mr. Burton. Let me just end by thanking all of you. I 
really appreciate your being here. I have two grandchildren--
one got a hepatitis B shot and stopped breathing within an 
hour; the other one got nine shots in 1 day and had a 
temperature of about 105 and became autistic, slamming his head 
against the wall, running around screaming. That is two for 
two. I guess maybe I am just one of those unfortunate 
statistics. But I have got to tell you, I think the problem is 
much greater than we believe, and I do believe, I personally do 
believe the vaccines have something to do with it.
    Now, my position, since I am not a scientist, is really not 
one that most people are going to pay much attention to, or the 
parents who testified here today. But, what I do want to do is 
take all the scientific information that we have acquired today 
from you, from all the other doctors, and submit that to the 
health agencies of this country and ask them to do a thorough 
study of all of them to see if there is any validity to what we 
think the problem is. If they do that and do it thoroughly, and 
they report back to the Congress, it will be a real service to 
the American people.
    Yes, Dr. Rimland.
    Mr. Rimland. I think it is rather interesting that most of 
the official authorities are taking the position that the 
increase in autism is unrelated to the vaccine use.
    One of my favorite expressions--I do not know who said it; 
I heard it one time, and I have tried to find out who said it, 
because I think it is extremely true--is ``The chronicle of 
man's progress is the history of authority refuted.''
    Mr. Burton. Well, thank you very much.
    Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
    I have two very quick announcements. The NIH is having a 
meeting for parents of children with autism tomorrow morning 
from 10 a.m. to noon at the Natcher Auditorium on the NIH 
campus in Bethesda. If you would like to attend, you are 
welcome to attend that.
    And we need to announce that the Unlocking Autism group is 
having a reception in HC-5 in the Capitol immediately after the 
hearing.
    Thank you very much. I appreciate your being here. We stand 
adjourned.

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Note/Warning:

Autistic people have fought the inclusion of ABA in therapy for us since before Autism Speaks, and other non-Autistic-led autism organizations, started lobbying legislation to get it covered by insurances and Medicaid. 

ABA is a myth originally sold to parents that it would keep their Autistic child out of an institution. Today, parents are told that with early intervention therapy their child will either be less Autistic or no longer Autistic by elementary school, and can be mainstreamed in typical education classes. ABA is very expensive to pay out of pocket. Essentially, Autism Speaks has justified the big price tag up front will offset the overall burden on resources for an Autistic’s lifetime. The recommendation for this therapy is 40 hours a week for children and toddlers.

The original study that showed the success rate of ABA to be at 50% has never been replicated. In fact, the study of ABA by United States Department of Defense was denounced as a failure. Not just once, but multiple times. Simply stated: ABA doesn’t work. In study after repeated study: ABA (conversion therapy) doesn’t work. 

What more recent studies do show: Autistics who experienced ABA therapy are at high risk to develop PTSD and other lifelong trauma-related conditions. Historically, the autism organizations promoting ABA as a cure or solution have silenced Autistic advocates’ opposition. ABA is also known as gay conversion therapy.

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[Note: Autism is NOT a disease, but a neurodevelopmental difference and disability.]

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Fact: Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.

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