http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/4999920p-6008071c.html
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.
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