Has the National Autism Assocation left the Autism Policy Reform Coalition?

There’s a group working to change the law reauthorizing Federal autism research. They haven’t been very successful so far and, frankly, that’s OK with me. That group, or coalition, calls itself the Autism Policy Reform Coalition. The coalition’s member groups are small and focused on the idea that vaccines cause autism.

The Coalition has changed their website. The URL, the design and, apparently, the membership has changed. Here’s a bit of a screenshot of the original page at autismpolicy.org (click to enlarge):

The new website is at autismpolicy.net. Yep, .org to .net. I guess there’s a reason for that but let’s look at bigger changes. Namely, the member organizations.

On AutismPolicy.net, we see the member organizations are:

The Thinking Mom’s Revolution
SafeMinds
Defending Academic Integrity and Research Foundation (D.A.I.R).
Generation Rescue
Talk About Curing Autism
The Autism Trust
Autism Is Medical

Perhaps I missed it but the National Autism Association isn’t on the member list now as far as I can see. Perhaps it will show up in a future edit of the page. Perhaps the NAA are no longer a part of the Coalition. If they left, it does beg the question of “why?”

I’ll note that The Autism Trust (a group with Andrew Wakefield involved) has been added to the APRC though. Not in my mind a step forward.

All these groups in the APRC have some focus on vaccines. Some are primarily focused on vaccines. The Autism Trust, Autism Is Medical and D.A.I.R. are all associated with Andrew Wakefield (the doctor who more than anyone promoted the idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism). As far as I can tell, the only group with dues paying members is the NAA, which is now absent from the list.

I wouldn’t be surprised if no one remembers that 4 years ago there was another coalition–the Combating Autism Act Reauthorization Coalition. Their website disappeared for a while but it’s back up now. I wonder if all the member organizations of that Coaltion were asked if they still wanted to participate. I’ll note that back in 2010, this coalition was willing to openly admit that vaccines were part of their platform. The new Autism Policy Reform Coalition does not mention vaccines, even though all the member groups believe in vaccine causation.

So, what do we have now in the Autism Policy Reform Coalition? A small and possibly shrinking group of vaccine-focused parent groups that won’t use the word vaccine? If the APRC has lost the NAA, that’s a big step back. The NAA is one of the larger groups and one with a mission that is no longer so focused on vaccines. It’s less easy to hide the vaccine connection without them.

—
By Matt Carey