The prestigious science journal, Nature, has an article on the rising prevalence of autism. It says ...

Shifting diagnoses and heightened awareness explain only part of the apparent rise in autism. Scientists are struggling to explain the rest.

... and much more (see more here).

The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs omitted a submission from A4 to its Inquiry into Commonwealth funding and administration of mental health services. The Committee's final report does not mention autism at all ... it does not acknowledge that it received a submission from A4.

Michelle Griffin, August 26, 2011

VICTORIAN education authorities insist they have the right to restrict the number of integration aides and other specialists that they hire - even if it means discriminating against students with disabilities.

And the state says it would cost almost $1 billion if it had to to hire an integration aide for every student with an IQ of 75 or less, which it could not afford.

Media Release

Autism Asperger Advocacy Australia (A4) calls on the Treasurer, Mr Swan, to ignore the Business Council of Australia’s simplistic and morally bankrupt advice on Disability Support Pensions. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) is calling for cuts to disability support.

In a letter to the Treasurer, Bob Buckley, A4’s Convenor, says “the views of the BCA on this issue are not based on facts and are economically unsound. BCA members, Australia’s top 100 companies, should be embarrassed.”

A 1998 STUDY that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was "an elaborate fraud", the British Medical Journal has charged.

Blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, the study was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced, after the country's longest-running hearing, for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.