[Isaac]

In reply to Shannon's comments, I would like to say that the fringe issue of "autism acceptance," is not about U.S. Republicans vs. U.S Democrats, or left vs. right. This long-term struggle is about very ill children in Canada being denied the publicly funded Medicare doctors have prescribed for their autism. The U.S., in fact, is light-years ahead of Canada in terms of publicly funded autism treatment … and treatment in that country is guaranteed under U.S. federal law (Canada has much catching up to do in this regard … I invite everyone to 'Google' that … please see IDEA).

What Shannon failed to mention is that only in the U.S. do kids with autism get federal government protection under IDEA and ADA laws. Similar laws for disability protection do not exist for the children living in Canada's "Liberal" mentality. What we have in Canada is pure hypocrisy, wherein government asserts they protect "all" minority Charter rights in Canada … but in fact that only means same-sex marriage rights, not health care rights for the most vulnerable disabled group of children in the country (Google Auton, Supreme Court of Canada).

The phrase "moon-bat," for Canadian purposes, has absolutely nothing to do with U.S. politics. This is a term that simply applies to those home-grown, Canadian "moon-bats" (the very outer fringe) who subscribe to the loony-tunes notion that autism is somehow a culture rather than a widely recognized DSM-IV neurological disorder. No reasonable person would disagree.

*************************************************
Posted by Shannon Nilson (Nilson) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 – 9:00 pm:

Stephen,

Moonbats you may think is a great phrase but…

After living in the United States for many years, it is a phrase that
most Republican Conservatives use to describe Canadians and Democrats
that want their government to pay for healthcare (of which they call a
"Liberal" mentality). Google for more information.

Therefore, the phrase incites personal ire.
*************************************************

[Isaac]

The Victoria Times Colonist ran a sizable autism piece on Sunday (03/13/05), on the story of a parent-advocate, Sheri Marino. The article is copied below.

Marino's central message is this: "Don't force autistic kids to be 'normal,'" and she forcefully maintains that society should change to accommodate her child's proclivities, rather than the other way around – i.e., that effective treatment must help a child afflicted with autism better fit into society.

When reading the Times Colonist article, please keep in mind these two central questions: is it correct for parents to simply "accept" the maladaptive behaviours associated with their child's autism as being somehow a natural part of human diversity; and, importantly, is it even remotely realistic to expect that society will ever change to accommodate those maladaptive behaviours? In my view, the answer to both questions, especially the latter, is clearly no – it's a delusional pipedream, with all the attendant harmful consequences (lifelong institutionalization comes to mind first).

I invite all members of this discussion group to please write letters to the editor of the Times Colonist (http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/letters.html) and also please share your thoughts on this topic here in the FEAT BC forum.

For background information on the moon-bat "autism-is-a-culture" fringe, this is a recommended read: https://featbc.org/downloads/AutismCultureMyth.pdf

Isaac
Miki's Dad

*********************************************************
Autism

The mother in Richie's world
Times Colonist (Victoria), Page D01, 13-Mar-2005
By Jeff Rud
Eight-year-old Richie stands in front of the television set, focusing on one of the hundreds of carefully organized episodes of Friends he has neatly stacked along the living room wall in the ground-floor James Bay apartment.
As the video flickers across the screen, the boy uses the big toe on his right foot to cue the VCR, searching back and forth for a precise spot on the tape.
Hunting intently for the scene, Richie slaps himself on the back of the neck several times while emitting intermittent shrieks. A few feet away, his mother, Sheri Marino, continues to chat casually with a visitor.
She does not attempt to stop Richie from smacking himself, a form of "self-stimulating" often exhibited by children with autism. Nor does she try to force him to interact with the guest who has come specifically to see him.
This is Marino's philosophy at work. Her son is autistic. That is not changing, now or in the future. She knows Richie will never be normal, but here's the key part: She doesn't expect him to be.
Marino's life has become one all-consuming, often-frustrating mission: To care for her son intuitively and to make the world a more understanding place for children such as Richie by educating others about autism.
"I just let him feel comfortable in his own skin, let him be who he is,'' says the thin, frail-looking woman, her large, sunken green eyes glancing across the living room at her boy.
"I believed from Day One that there was a reason Richie needed to do these things, and so I allowed him to do them and just accepted it as a part of him and part of his learning process.''
Richie is huge for his age, standing five feet tall, weighing 145 pounds, already sporting size eight feet. But size is not what makes the boy so very different from other eight-year-olds.
He is distinguished mainly by his affliction, which, as with most other children at various points along the autism spectrum, leaves him partially trapped in another world.
Richie's mother has worked, almost desperately, for the last seven years to build a bridge to that world, to break down the communication and socialization barriers that isolate her son. She is the boy's therapist, caregiver, friend, teacher, playmate and mom. It is a 24-7 kind of job and that dedication has come at her personal peril. At 40, she has no social life and lives in relative poverty, getting by on about $400 a month for her and Richie after the rent and utilities are paid.
Her style with her child bucks the most popular approach to the disorder, which is the behaviour modification of such children through co-ordinated multi-disciplinary therapy programs known as applied behavioural analysis. This approach uses intensive one-on-one therapies, breaking down required skills to their lowest components, teaching those components, and then chaining them all together.
Instead of trying to modify Richie's behaviour in this fashion, Marino has embraced her child's peculiarities and even used them as a teaching tool. She believes autistic children should be accepted just as they are, that their unusual traits be utilized, not ostracized. She believes these are basic human rights of her son and other children like him.
That's why Marino feels frustrated with both the Greater Victoria School District and the B.C. government, bodies she says are stonewalling her one-woman crusade to provide a more welcoming environment for autistic children in area schools.
Marino has asked the district for permission to make personal presentations on autism in its schools, using a video created by Vic High drama teacher Alan Penty and his students. She wants access to the school district's classrooms to spread her message of acceptance.
But associate superintendent Dave Pitre wants her to first clear the presentation with staff and administration and allow each school to make the decision on whether her material is appropriate.
Marino doesn't think individual schools should have that choice. She has already initiated a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, saying not allowing her presentation district-wide exposure amounts to discrimination against all autistic students.
"My understanding is she wants direct access to kids and I'm saying I can't give direct access to kids,'' Pitre says. "That's not the way we work in this district. We rely on our principals to make decisions on what's best for their communities.
"We've attempted to be co-operative. We've attempted to be understanding. You know, I've told her that I would continue to work with her.''
Marino is also frustrated with the provincial government. Early Childhood Development Minister of State Linda Reid attended a classroom presentation Marino gave in December and Marino had high hopes that the ministry would get behind the program provincewide. That hasn't panned out, although Reid says she's open to proposals.
Like many parents of special-needs children, Marino has learned to navigate her way through the corridors of power for the good of her child. She may only have a Grade 10 equivalency, but she is also fiercely determined and virtually impossible to ignore. She works the phone like a cold-call saleswoman, relentlessly pursuing any opportunity to advocate for her son or autism awareness. She is well-known in a several ministry offices in the B.C. legislature and she has written letters to the prime minister.
Her efforts started simply out of trying to help her son. When Richie was younger, she took him around their James Bay neighbourhood, introducing him to people who worked in the grocery store and the bank. She told them about autism and about Richie, hoping that every eye she opened to the affliction would be another mind opened as well.
That campaign has now spread to promoting widespread awareness of autism. Marino writes letters to the editor, guest articles in community newspapers and even poetry on the subject. And once she has the ear of a government department, school board official or a reporter, she doesn't stop calling.
"As most people would tell you,'' she says, "I'm the nicest, politest, pain in the butt you'll ever meet.''
Pain or not, Marino has managed through that sheer persistence to at least make more people think about autism.
"I don't know another parent in all my years of doing this who has kind of stuck her nose out there. She's not afraid of hearing no,'' says Julie Lafontaine, a provincial government-funded consultant who has worked with Sheri and Richie for the past three years.
"Frankly, I admire her advocacy,'' adds Reid, the provincial early childhood development minister of state. "Any kid needs a champion in their corner and a child with special needs needs a really huge champion, no question about that.''
Marino is certainly that for Richie, although her insistence on playing the lead role in his treatment has at times alienated her from professionals and educators who have tried to help. Lafontaine, employed by the Mainstream Association for Proactive Community Living, fills only an advisory role for Marino.
Richie and his mom made an attempt at school three years ago, but that ended when Marino clashed with school officials over the way the boy was handled. He is now home-schooled. The decisions on Richie's care and education are completely up to the mom.
Autism Society of B.C. president Michael Lewis says his organization certainly wouldn't recommend Marino's singular approach for everyone.
"The thing that worries me is people that just go off and do their own thing, it might work but it might not work,'' Lewis says. "I guess that's the flag I would raise … The reason it's not common or recommended is that if you had cancer you wouldn't go on the Internet and decide how to treat yourself.''
Nevertheless, if Marino's approach is working for Richie, Lewis says that's the important thing.
"What ideally would happen is that she would link up with somebody with the expertise to sort of document her program because God knows breakthroughs come from strange places."
Marino concedes that her all-out, hands-on approach would not work for many parents, who simply wouldn't have the time. But she believes many others might follow her lead if the federal government would provide funding for them to serve as their children's full-time caregivers and therapists. This is her latest advocacy project, but not likely her last.
While success as an autism advocate has been mixed, Marino's intuitive approach with Richie has paid some clear dividends.
Three years ago, the boy would make no eye contact with guests, let alone speak with them. If he interacted with visitors it was usually only to hand them their shoes, to deliver an unspoken message: Come back when you can't stay so long.
These days, a guest might get a smile, a few words, a joke, maybe even a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Richie might show off his impressive mathematical ability, asking for a visitor's age and instantly spitting out his birthdate in return. Or not. This small apartment is Richie's world. His mother just lives in it. And the rest of us are merely visiting.
People with autism often have what are known as "perservations." These are fixations, interests or special talents in one area on which the child focuses to an unusual degree, often to distraction.
Since he was three, Richie's main perservation has been country music. He owns more than 1,000 CDs and tapes and can tell you, when the mood strikes him, who wrote each and every song. His mother believes he will be a country star one day. Two things are certain: Richie has an unusual love for the music and Sheri has used that love to teach her son life skills.
Richie learned to brush his teeth by counting country stars. "One Shania Twain, Two Tim McGraw,'' his mom recites. "I'd name off 32 country people, one for each tooth brushed. We'd make a continual game out of it.''
Later, when she had trouble getting Richie to learn how to write his own name, she reminded him that he would never be able to sign autographs for fans unless he did. That closed the deal.
"Instead of trying to force him to see my world, I tried to put myself into his world and understand why he does the things that he does,'' she says.
She is not the first to take this approach with an autistic child — it has been around in some form since the 1970s — but she is certainly in the minority.
"I think it's a good thing,'' says Lafontaine. "It's like an accepting thing — like let's just go with it instead of working against it. Richie kind of sets the tone to what he'll be learning.''
Everything Marino has taught her son has been based on his interests. She has not forced him into anything. It's an approach that takes unlimited patience and time. And it's an approach that has been all-consuming for the highly spiritual mother who has survived both a rare form of cancer and emphysema.
Helping with the workload lately has been Richie's father, Richard Leitner, who reunited with Marino at the end of December after a four-year separation. Leitner has been supportive of her approach with Richie and, even during their time apart, visited the boy daily.
"There are some other families that have her approach,'' Lafontaine says. "But there are more parents out there that buy into this: 'Well, they have to be normal. They have to be like typical kids, we can't let them do bizarre behaviour in a restaurant.' Whereas Sheri is like: 'Well, this is who he is, this is what he does, and if you don't like it, don't look.' ''
Marino says that trying to force the autistic child to conform is wrong, that such children can no more alter themselves to be "normal" than a dog can become a cat.
"Autistic people are asked to imitate normal people,'' Marino says with a sigh, "and they are judged that way.''
Although Lafontaine would like to see Richie attend school and interact more with other children, she says Marino's approach with Ritchie is clearly working.
"Richie has made good progress,'' Lafontaine says. "At first when I saw him, he would primarily just talk when he wanted something. You know: 'I want juice, I want milk' — that kind of stuff. Now you can have a conversation with him. The eye contact is there.''
Where once a visit by Lafontaine would result in Richie handing her her shoes right away or throwing a tantrum, he now enjoys her visits and is more subtle about when he wants her to leave.
During a recent visit, as Richie departed with his father to have lunch at McDonald's, he told Lafontaine that he didn't want her there when he returned.
"See you not later,'' Richie said.
*********************************************************

[Isaac]

>"Let's postpone this difficult decision to the next generation.
>That's the natural inclination of political leaders."

Dave, thank you for the thoughtful quote from Jimmy Carter.

I too, have a quote to share with the group. This is one that speaks volumes about the travesty we're struggling to comprehend. Penned two years ago, it's the most profound social commentary resultant of the Auton case.

"I conclude that the failure [to fund treatment for children with autism] is a statement that their mental disability is less worthy of assistance than the transitory medical problems of others. It is to say that the community was less interested in their plight than the plight of other children needing care and adults needing mental health therapy. This is a socially constructed handicap …" [Madam Justice Saunders, October 9, 2002, Court of Appeal for British Columbia]

Saunders' unassailable truth needs to be repeated as often as possible. It must be disseminated as far and as wide as possible, to anyone who will listen. The "socially constructed handicap" now affirmed and endorsed by the highest court in the land, is PRECISELY what Justice Saunders calls a "community … less interested in" the treatment needs of children afflicted with autism, meaning that our children are somehow deemed "less worthy" by ALL officialdom, including the high court.

On the most specious of grounds, the Supreme Court of Canada chose to betray our children … and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms itself. Postponement of difficult decisions on the part of politicians is one thing. That those powerful politicians and health policy technocrats can actually influence a purportedly independent high court, to the determent of a nation's cherished constitution and "Bill of Rights" … well, that's something ENTIRELY different.

Isaac (Miki's Dad)

[Isaac]

Nancy's amazing autism treatment petition
event with a B.C. MP is in the story below.
Thank you so much Nancy!

h
ttp://featbc.org/Times_12_24_04.pdf

[Isaac]

I'd like to share a few thoughts on Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, since we have yet more of his blather in Hansard.

Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh: "Mr. Chair, this [autism treatment] is obviously again a very difficult issue. In health care we deal with difficult issues from time to time. I was in fact part of the government in British Columbia when the case that recently came before the Supreme Court was decided. The case in British Columbia. I believe I was the attorney general."

As B.C. Attorney General, and then B.C. Premier, Dosanjh was responsible for the so-called "difficult" decision to appeal the Auton case. Dosanjh's provincial government chose to fight rather than help children with autism, in a bizarre delusion that such sacrificial offerings to the Socialist gods of Medicare would forestall a fiscal calamity for the Medicare system — utterly fictional rubbish.

Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh: "I spoke to a constituent of mine several weeks ago during one of my constituency days. He has a 12 year old or 13 year old autistic child. The man was in tears."

Never forget: Dosanjh is the reason the Auton case went to the Supreme Court of Canada. He appealed the case and chose to block necessary health care for children with autism. Dosanjh can't feign compassion now for a father in tears over his autistic child when it is Dosanjh himself who is that child's enemy, the one who denied that child hope, the one who does not believe in that child's right to be in Medicare.

It is beyond cruel to now be forced to grovel before THIS Health Minister — this duplicitous politician — to beg for anything even approaching a meaningful national autism strategy. Preserve your self-respect. This is the wrong address to seek progress on autism treatment. Bypass Dosanjh and unceasingly expose him for being the harmful hypocrite he is where autism health care is concerned.

Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh: "There was not much I could do as a federal politician. These are provincial jurisdictions and the provinces and territories make difficult decisions and difficult choices."

And the hypocrisy spigot opens wide — classic Dosanjhism.

When Dosanjh was a provincial politician in full charge of this provincial jurisdiction, there was plenty he could do, but he chose to do NOTHING for the autism treatment problem, except of course, fight as hard as possible to make sure the Auton case never succeeds in achieving justice for children with autism.

Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh: "But I am prepared to take a leadership role at least in terms of coordinating our response across the country and discussing what we collectively as leaders in different levels of government can do."

He already HAD a leadership role and showed with actions what he's prepared to do with his leadership: ensure the defeat of Auton. And he needn't bother "coordinating … [a government] response across the country." That's already been done. Governments were VERY well coordinated against children with autism last June in Ottawa: there was a sea of black-robed provincial attorney general lawyers from across the country at the SCC hearing, fighting us as intervenors — including Ujjal Dosanjh's federal government. Dosanjh didn't mention that part in Hansard, that his government helped kill any chance kids with autism have at inclusion in Medicare to overcome this horrible disorder.

Please, Minister Dosanjh, spare us more hypocrisy. It's just too painful for even a callused veteran of the autism wars to bear.

Isaac (Miki's Dad)
FEAT BC

[Isaac]

Globe and Mail, Monday, Dec. 20, 2004

Don't look to courts for social justice
By ALLAN HUTCHINSON

Last week's Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage has put the Constitution and the court firmly back in the public limelight. Wherever one
stands, most will concede that the court is adept at playing politics. Yet, for all its formal and subtle virtues, the constitutional game is (or ought to be) about the substance of what is decided.

If the same-sex ruling puts in question the Supreme Court's legitimate role, other decisions serve to underline the particular cut of the judiciary's
substantive politics. In terms of winners and losers, it can now be safely reported that we have managed to craft (or, at least, the courts have) a screwed-up Constitution. The promise of a People's Charter is only a fleeting memory.

The fact that the Supreme Court has accorded constitutional status to tobacco corporations and denied it to autistic children should cause everyone to question the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There can be no starker evidence that we have gone wildly astray in our efforts to protect and advance ordinary people's rights.

The Charter is supposed to enshrine those values that we believe are so fundamental to Canadian society that they should be beyond the vagaries and vanities of the democratic process. While those commitments are never beyond controversy, most agree that these values are intended to be constitutive of a "free and democratic society." So how did we recognize the advertising freedoms of RJR-Macdonald and ignore the funding pleas of autistic children's parents?

When the two decisions are approached separately, they each have a modicum of sense and justification, at least in lawyers' frames of reference. They rely on some basic legal principles and established constitutional categorizations. Yet, this should serve to heighten our suspicions — legalistic formulations do not for social justice make.

In the Charter's early days, the Supreme Court decided that corporations count as an "everyone" in the constitutional rush to legislative judgment; they could claim basic rights and freedoms. Having sown the wind, the court reaped the whirlwind in the early 1990s when it upheld the tobacco companies' challenge to legislative efforts to curb their "freedom of expression" by demanding explicit warnings on their products.

The basic rationale was that "expression" was such a fundamental activity in a democracy that it must be protected even in dubious circumstances. Why this applied to so-called commercial speech as much as to political expression was unexplained. In short, the court seemed to feel that the cost of constitutionally protected advertising was the price of democratic justice.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. The Supreme Court decided that autistic children had no constitutional right to require British Columbia to
finance expensive therapy for them. The court was sympathetic to the children and their parents (and hoped that the province would reconsider)
but held that health policy was not part of the Constitution. The court determined it was a matter for fiscal calculation by politicians, not constitutional principle by lawyers.

Such a decision sounds reasonable on its own terms. That is, until it is viewed against the court's findings in the tobacco-advertising cases. By
what logic can it be argued that the commercial rights of tobacco companies are more deserving of constitutional protection than that of autistic
children? Ironically, the cost of the children's requested therapy was meagre compared to the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses. But the
point is that autistic children are seen to count for less than tobacco companies in the constitutional scheme of things. And, thus, they count for less in the calibrations of democratic decision-making.

As if to add insult to injury, the courts come to this pass not as a
conclusion of contested political judgment, but as a purported constitutional fact. This is a lamentable state of affairs. Autistic children or multinational corporations?

Of course, constitutionalizing health care and putting funding decisions in judges' hands is not the way to go. But, at a minimum, it behooves the
courts to revisit the constitutional indulgences granted to corporations. If we are to reclaim the Charter's promise of social justice, we must be
prepared to do something. The fate of more than autistic children is riding
on it.

Allan C. Hutchinson is associate dean at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School.

[Isaac]

Well folks, since a "little bird" put government droppings on this chat board tonight regarding ACT-BC's conversation on the government's gutting of Autism Society of British Columbia funding, within hours of the SCC ruling — complicit with Children's Assistant Deputy Minister Robin Syme — I suppose it's only fair and balanced to post the FEAT-BC press release of 12.20.04 that predates. Here it is for everyone's review.

Please feel free to post your thoughts on this topic to the FEAT BC discussion board. They'll get to Victoria's senior Ministry of Poverty hacks MUCH faster then by Canada Post.

Regards,
Isaac (Miki's Dad)
FEAT BC

For immediate release — December 20, 2004

Government's retribution decisive after high court Auton ruling
Assistant Deputy Minister Syme takes swift vengeance, pulls funds from BC Autism Society

Mere days after the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the landmark Auton autism case, Children's Assistant Deputy Minister Robin Syme has been quick to take revenge on all people with autism in B.C., by cancelling government funding for the Autism Society of B.C. (A.S.B.C.) – a thirty-year-old organization that represents and offers important supports for all British Columbians afflicted with autism. In shocking contrast to the deceptively soothing words of Attorney General Geoff Plant, who claims that the end of the Auton case does not mean open season on British Columbians suffering with autism, Assistant Deputy Minister Syme's reply to the Auton case is to seek retribution by starving the Autism Society, now that autistic children's protection from lower court decisions is gone. In targeting A.S.B.C. first, Syme has opened a campaign of punishing those who gave moral support to the families who sued government for medically necessary autism treatment. After pulling funding from the A.S.B.C., Syme is now using the money to reward her friends – the same people who supported the government's failed attempt to defeat families in B.C. Supreme Court now receive a large contract from Syme's ministry. This is the true face of the Ministry, not Geoff Plant's superficial, misleading assurances that government cares about children with autism.
It is unusual to focus on a single civil servant for special consideration, but where autism policy in B.C. is concerned, it is impossible to have a full and complete picture of the autism struggle without knowledge of the leading role played by Assistant Deputy Minister Robin Syme. It was she who led the government charge against families in the Auton court case under the NDP government. She remains the chief autism policy czar under the Liberal government. Her level of power and influence over persons with autism is extraordinary. It is undeniable that Syme's misguided autism policies politically damaged the NDP government and now threaten to damage support for the present government amongst those who have compassion for the vulnerable and disabled of B.C.
A striking example of Syme's hubris is her recent interference in the operation of a supposedly independent society: The A.S.B.C. sent a questionnaire to all autism treatment providers in B.C. to determine their level of qualifications and expertise (https://featbc.org/asbc.pdf), this to ensure that British Columbians suffering with autism have the knowledge necessary to make a good and informed choice in autism treatment provider. Robin Syme took the unprecedented step of quashing A.S.B.C.'s important effort to protect persons with autism from substandard, harmful service providers. The Assistant Deputy Minister wrote a letter forcefully directing autism service providers to not disclose any information about their credentials to provide treatment to children with autism (https://featbc.org/syme.pdf). In short, Syme has used her government's power to withhold key information from children who desperately need high quality autism treatment. In the fall of 2000, Gordon Campbell said this:
• "The NDP decision to appeal the recent ruling of Madam Justice Allan reflects a government that has consistently failed to act in the best interests of children." – Gordon Campbell, October 18, 2000, in a letter to a concerned parent
Robin Syme is the senior civil servant responsible for this "consistent" failure, and she is still in charge of autism failure under the Liberal government. The Premier is either unaware of Syme's harmful role in autism policy or he is unwilling to do anything about her. If the former, then media clippings on his desk may help fix the autism problem in B.C. If the latter, then some courage on the part of the Premier is required to "clean house" at the Children's Ministry, or generations of children with autism will assuredly continue to suffer in B.C., for years to come.

– 30 –

For more information on medically necessary autism treatment and fallout from the Auton case,
please call Dr. Sabrina Freeman at (604) 534-6956
Email: skfreeman@featbc.org | Website: http://www.featbc.org

[Isaac]

Adding to Jim Mulick's important "cost benefit analysis," FEAT of BC is now making available Doug Hildebrand's Lovaas-ABA cost benefit analysis, done for B.C. families in the landmark Auton case of 2000. This is a very detailed, well done study from a highly regarded economic consulting company that specializes in cost benefit analyses — Columbia Pacific Consulting. The Hildebrand cost benefit analysis on ABA is being made public so that all children fighting for the legal right to effective, science-based autism treatment can benefit from this important research.

Although the Auton case for ABA funding regrettably was overturned on a technicality by the Supreme Court of Canada in November, 2004, important finding's of fact from the lower courts were not: that Lovaas-ABA is medically necessary, uniquely effective and of long term fiscal benefit to society.

The detailed economic study done by Doug Hildebrand shows that intensive behavioral treatment along the Lovaas model, saves society between 1 to 2 million dollars over the life of the person — and Hildebrand's numbers are deliberately skewed to the conservative side.

Doug Hildebrand's cost benefit analysis should be in every ABA lawyer's kit
bag. It's available for download from the FEAT BC server at this address:

–> https://featbc.org/downloads/Hildebrand_Lovaas_ABA.pdf

Please send any questions or comments to info@featbc.org rather than Columbia Pacific Consulting.

Thank you!

Isaac (Miki's Dad)
FEAT of BC

[Isaac]

A PDF version of the Ipsos-Reid/Families for Early Autism Treatment of BC autism poll is available at:
https://featbc.org/downloads/Ipsos_12_20_04.pdf

**********************************************
Public Release Date: – December 20, 2004 – 9:30 a.m. (EST)
CANADIANS BACK AUTISM FUNDING FROM PROVINCES

Full Majority (84%) Believe Their Provincial Healthcare Program Should Cover The Costs Of The Intensive Behavioural Treatment For Children Suffering From Autism Despite Supreme Court Decision

Toronto, ON – A new Ipsos-Reid survey conducted on behalf of Families for Early Autism Treatment of British Columbia finds nine in ten (89%) Canadians believe that their provincial healthcare program should cover the costs of the Intensive Behavioural Treatment, which has scientifically been proven, to effectively treat children who suffer from autism.
Once informed that there was a recent decision by The Supreme Court of Canada that provinces are not legally responsible for covering the Intensive Behavioural Treatment, which costs a family approximately $60,000 a year and would save taxpayers 1-2 million dollars over the lifetime of an autistic child, and that while their province is not legally bound under the Canada Health Act to provide funding for this service they still can choose to do so out of their health budget, 84% of Canadians said that while not obligated to cover this healthcare cost, their province should do so anyways.
These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Families for Early Autism Treatment of British Columbia poll conducted from December 14th to December 16th, 2004. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1001 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.
When asked whether or not they "believe that children who suffer from autism should be covered by their provincial healthcare program to receive an Intensive Behavioural Treatment, which has scientifically been proven, to effectively treat autism," 89% of Canadians say "yes." Just 6% say "no" and another 6% are unsure.
* Eastern Canadians are more likely than their neighbours to the west to believe that their provincial healthcare program should cover the costs of the Intensive Behavioural Treatment: 95% of Atlantic Canadians, 90% of Quebecers, and 91% of Ontarians say "yes" compared to 85% of residents of British Columbia, 82% of residents of Alberta, and 80% of residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba.
Canadians were then read the following statement, "now, as you may know, there was a recent decision by The Supreme Court which indicated that provinces are not legally responsible for covering the Intensive Behavioural Treatment for children with autism. This means that while your province is not legally bound under the Canada Health Act to provide funding for this service they still can choose to do so out of their health budget. It is estimated that The Intensive Behavioural Treatment, a scientifically proven effective treatment for children with autism, which costs a family approximately $60,000 a year would save taxpayers 1-2 million dollars over the lifetime of an autistic child." When asked whether or not they think that while not obligated to cover this healthcare cost, their province should do so anyways, 84% said "yes." One in ten (9%) said "no" and the remaining 8% didn't know whether or not they think that while not obligated to cover this healthcare cost, their province should do so anyways.
* Canadians 18-54 years of age are more likely than their elders to think that while not obligated to cover the cost of the Intensive Behavioural Treatment for children with autism, their province should do so anyways (87% vs. 77%).
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For more information on this news release, please contact:
John Wright
Senior Vice President
Ipsos-Reid
Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900

Sabrina Freeman, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Families for Early Autism Treatment of BC
(604) 534-6956

For full tabular results, please visit our website at http://www.ipsos.ca. News Releases are available at: http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/

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[Isaac]

> By Lorhainne Ekelund
>
> Can anyone tell me where to go to find online petition,
> friends of mine just tried to find it online…

Here is the address for the online petition in support of health insurance coverage for medically necessary autism treatment:

http://www.petitiononline.com/andap1/petition.html

[Author]

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