I just received this message from Carole Rutherford at Autism in Mind and ask all UK readers to join us in trying to get autism discussed at the final televised debate between the party leaders.
The final Prime Ministerial debate takes place on Thursday night. The final debate is about the economy. It is estimated that there are at least half a million children and adults who have a diagnosis of autism. There are many more who have the condition without the diagnosis. There could be as many as 6 million families in the UK alone who are living with autism.
Autism-In-Mind and Asperger Syndrome Action by Parents want the leaders to talk about autism on Thursday night and we need your help now. We want you to submit the following question onto the BBC ‘Election Question’ form. The question is wrapped around the economy and how the money that is being spent on autism every year is being spent. It is important that we all ask the same question. We want 1000,s of people to ask this question by Thursday Night and if we can achieve this then maybe someone will listen to us and will talk about autism.
Question to submit to the BBC
A recent study by researchers at King’s College London estimated that autism costs the UK economy around £28.2 billion per year, and yet thousands of autistic/Asperger syndrome children and adults do not meet the criteria for any provision or services. Autism/Asperger syndrome requires services from the cradle to the grave. The only money attached to the newly published Autism Strategy will be half a million pounds for increasing awareness and understanding of autism among frontline professionals with nothing for service provision.
In the first debate there seemed to be recognition from all three parties that there is a huge social care agenda to be addressed in the future, but will it include autistic/Asperger syndrome and disabled people and what guarantee can you give that it will include them? How are you going to make sure that EVERY autistic child and adult is not left until crisis point before they are given the provision that they need? Many of us would like to know how much of the £28.2 billion is being spent on crisis management.<?b>
Here is where you post the question – you do have to give your name and where you live. You do not have to add a telephone number if you do not want to. If you do want to add this number 07960875526 this phone will be deactivated after Thursday night.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8589502.stm
Here are some facts and figures produced about Autism last year by the National Audit Office – This might help you to understand how important it is for the Leaders to ‘Talk about Autism’ on Thursday night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKMsO9t0pU
Left Brain Right Brain 
Bollox, it is all a side show, and appearance over substance, nobody cares what they say, it depends on there demeanour.
Machiavelli must be laughing, theres more to politics than that.
I don’t give a shit about autism in the next election I am more concerned about the survival of a greater class of disabled people who are being scapegoated on nearly all sides.
Labour will be a pyrhic victory, Tory a disaster. Make of that what you will, do we go to the grave as slaves and untermensch or do we fight outside of the theatre of party politics where personality is all that seems to matter and hypocrisy is all.
Brown, Cameron they are two sides of the same coin, and that is devalued currency for sure.
I do not accept this kind of argument framing us in terms of economic cost, I don’t believe it is accurate either, because it is looking at the economy in a rather simplistic one sided way.
Autism is not the problem at all, it is about creating an economy that can sustain itself at a level where no group is disadvantaged.
Economic growth does not come solely from production, that is ultimately self destructive. It comes from investment in people, people who are employed and feed that wealth back into the economy.
The economy does not need everyone to be productive in the material sense either, because a large part of the economy is the service economy, and the existance of all kind of dependencies, be that for fast food, or care needs creates the opportunities for employment.
People whose impairments are such that they cannot work themselves are not a net loss to the economy, they produce opportunities for employment in others, notwithstanding opportunities to produce suitable goods in terms of adaptive equipment perhaps.
Suppose if the human race became more robust tommmorrow, never fell ill, never had accidents. The whole health industry would fall apart, no big Pharma, no hospitals, there would be one mother of a recession …..
my child has autism and she is 20 now and everyday is hard and when her behavier gets out of hand and sometimes it will last for 2 hours i would love to know how to take care of her behavier better
Im a single mom with 2 kids.My oldest son Cedric who is autistic.
He is 13 years old right know.My daughter Hailey 3 yrs of age she is fine very smart girl. My concern right know is Cedric having behavior problem he can cry for 5hrs,He has severe autism and he still wearing diaper,he doesnt talk I pretty much doing everything for him.When Cedric was mad he can hurt me sometimes,he is bigger than me,my concern my daughter got scare.
Dont dont why he is changging a lot this year,Is hard to explain to my daughter.Is there a way that kids with autism to have a better medication to calm him down.Hope every parent has autistic kids can ask the president if there is away that every state can have a better placement for autistic school with hospital and better shelter for them. Thanks a lot