The subject was so cloaked in falsehood and failure that only three years ago no one at the National Institutes of Health could tell us how much money was being spent per year on biological research in autism. Each morning, we called institute by institute, working down the chain of administrators until we reached the sub-accountant in each institute who took the time to review the grants and generate the numbers. And, yet, when we took the small bit of information we had about autism to scientists, they were excited. This is where Alzheimer s was 15 years ago. This is a tremendous opportunity.
Autism is a disease that is common, devastating, highly heritable and ripe for a breakthrough.
In three years, CAN has grown from a kitchen table effort to the largest non-federal financial supporter of autism research in the country. On a practical level, CAN uses its vast mailing list and contacts in the clinician community to bring patients and scientists together, which vastly increases the pace of research. CAN also works hard to get the government to pay more attention to autism. During the past few years, NIH has formed an Autism Coordinating Committee to encourage collaboration among the four autism funding institutes. Twin studies have shown 90 percent concordance for autism in identical twins.