Chris Smith: “Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4365, the Child Health Act of 2000, must be passed today and sent swiftly to the President for his…”

“Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4365, the Child Health Act of 2000, must be passed today and sent swiftly to the President for his signature. Mr. Speaker, I would like to focus a few moments on the silent epidemic of autism, we are in the midst of a silent epidemic of autism. No State, no county, no Federal agency systematically tracks cases of autism, but even faint glimpses of the truth are terrifying to behold. According to the Federal Department of Education, autistic special education students have increased by 153 percent from 1994 to 1999. In my home State of New Jersey, the Department of Education has said the number of kids classified as autistic in our school system has increased from 241 in 1991 to an incredible, astonishing 2,354 in 1999, an 876 percent increase. Mr. Speaker, at my request, the CDC conducted a ground-breaking autism prevalence investigation in Brick Township in New Jersey. The findings of the 2-year investigation were released just last month. We are informed that Brick's rate of classic autism was a whopping 4 per 1,000 children between ages 3 and 10, and the rate of autism spectrum disorders was 6.7 cases per 1,000. That is higher than most people had thought. Normally it is about 2 per 1,000. We had an incidence of 4 per 1,000.”