Tom Harkin

What a narrow view on education. When we were younger, I'll bet we were always kicked outside for recess.

That's still pretty high, not quite as bad as 1 in 4.

I'm sure you are. The answer is you are working with NIMH.

Well, I guess my mind rebels of something like that.

That kind of shocked my conscience when you talked about that.

There's nothing we couldn't do. We could make it all happen. There's enough political pressure to do that.

I appreciate that very much, Senator Specter.

Senator Specter and I have already pledged to reject the President's proposed cuts to NIH for fiscal year 2008.

I hope and trust that we'll be looking at that and that NIH will be examining that.

I just hope that within our budget confines that we can move ahead more aggressively on this whole area of autism than we ever have before.

It almost is like that AIDS epidemic. We've just got to get to it.

I understand that they stopped that because of privacy concerns.

That's a big concern to me.

I would welcome any suggestions you have that your, or your organization has on legislative changes.

Now, that would be an interesting epidemiological study. To compare what we're doing here to other countries, and to see if there's any correlation.

There's got to be, because, Dr. Insel--and that's why I asked the question at the beginning--do we know what's happening in other countries?

But I'm not talking about thimerosal. I'm just talking about the combined effects of all those vaccines on a small body that may be genetically predisposed anyway?

My point is, that you add them all up, and do we really know that 31 of those, given in the first 18 months--within that short span of time--each one of them may be individually fine, but do we know what the outcomes, what the impact is…

Dana Halburtson, from Iowa, told me that chelation therapy made a big difference with her 8-year old daughter, Robin.

But if things are happening out there, that people are having success with, I would think that NIH would want to look at it.

I'm trying to think of two things, here. How do we do more and better research?

I wanted to ask you a question, and I'm glad my panels are still here.

I'm wondering, have you looked at that? Is there something there?

It seems to cry out for that kind of support.

So, we do know. I'm going to make a statement, I don't know if it's scientifically sound or not, but everyone I've ever talked to says that it is factual that, the earlier you get to a kid with autism, and you provide interventions and…