Press Release about the NAA and Research by Wakefield

A September 25th press release announces that parents make donations for cutting-edge research. Specifically, some parents have made contributions totaling $30,000 to the National Autism Association (NAA), whose website proclaims “think autism think cure. Some of the research to be funded will be conducted by gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor whose article in the journal Lancet set off a scare about an autism-MMR link, and who currently faces misconduct charges in the UK and may not be allowed to practice medicine there again.

Parents funding research, however “cutting edge,” is less than new news. While not many parents can give $10,000, many of us have at one time or another written a cheque to an autism organization whose agenda includes funding “the latest research.”

The press release notes that the NAA is “currently funding research into the effects of mercury exposure in the brains of infant primates”; it needs also to be noted that studies continue to show that there is no link between vaccines or something in vaccines or autism.

Though one suspects that this is not the last time we hear of such research or of parents donating.