Autism research urged

By Dorsey Griffith -- Bee Medical Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Wednesday, October 30, 2002

WASHINGTON -- In response to a recent University of California, Davis, study on the dramatic increases in autism in California, Sen. Barbara Boxer is urging the Bush administration to do more to understand and treat the disorder.

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson released today, Boxer asks the administration to set a national standard for the diagnosis of autism and to instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to set up a task force to study the disorder. Boxer, D-Calif., also asks that the administration direct the National Institutes of Health and the CDC to work with states on a national chronic disease database.

The study, conducted by UC Davis researchers, found that the increase in the diagnosis of autism -- 273 percent between 1987 and 1998 -- cannot be explained by a loosening of the criteria used to make the diagnosis or migration of autistic children into California.