Campaigning

Autism Speaks: It’s Time to Listen

A new campaign is launched today (Thursday 9 March) to provide an answer to one of medicine’s most baffling questions: what causes autism?

The campaign is spearheaded by new charity Autism Speaks which has set itself the task of more than doubling the investment in research into the causes of the whole spectrum of conditions which are believed to affect more than five hundred thousand people in the UK. The campaign’s supporters believe that recent advances particularly in genetics and neuroscience have brought the answer closer. The campaign has set a ten year target to achieve a break-through in identifying the causes.

Autism is a complex brain disorder that significantly impairs a person’s ability to communicate, respond to their surroundings and form relationships with others. The symptoms and severity vary from individual to individual and autism is now viewed as a spectrum of disorders rather than a single condition.

The start point for the campaign is that the current low level of funding for biomedical research into autism does not reflect either the human or economic cost which the condition imposes. Less than two million pounds per year from all sources is currently allocated to such work. It attracts less than 0.5% of state medical research funding in the UK. This compares with the much larger sums allocated to studies into conditions with a much lower incidence and much less severe social consequences.

As a first step, the campaign will seek to increase the level of public debate and awareness about the condition. It will also put the case for more investment on the grounds that relevant disciplines such as genetics and neuroscience have recently reached a point where extra investment is likely to yield really substantial results.

Autism Speaks in the UK is an affiliate of the recently established project in the US of the same name which was itself a merger of the two biggest American charities concerned with causal research. These charities have already invested more than twenty million pounds into biomedical autism research. The link with the American organisation means that researchers in the UK will now have greater access to funding from the US.

The British campaign is the initiative of Dame Stephanie Shirley, the IT entrepreneur, who has committed thirty five million pounds, more than any other individual in the world, into research into the causes and treatment of autism.

Dame Stephanie said: ’We need to spend more money on basic research because any significant improvement in treatment of the condition really depends on our knowing more about its causes.’

Autism Speaks’ UK Chief Executive, Hilary Gilfoy points out that there is now a strong consensus amongst the medical research community that autism is genetic in origin.

She says: ’Recent research discoveries mean that we are making huge strides in both understanding our genetic make-up and how the brain works and it is in these areas that we expect to find the truth about the causes of autism. Developments like the mapping of the human genome mean that every pound invested in research now will bring proportionately much greater benefits.’

The ultimate objective of the campaign is to develop more effective educational, social and medical responses to a condition which at present costs an average of three million over the lifetime of each UK individual affected.

More immediately, Autism Speaks will encourage co-ordination of causal research around the world to ensure that global efforts are more effective.

The principal guest speaker at today’s launch at the Houses of Parliament will be the Health Minister Liam Byrne. The event will be supported by leading figures from the medical research community and by other leading charities engaged in supporting all those affected by autism, including the National Autistic Society. Also present will be families affected by autism who are supporting the campaign, representatives of government departments and senior representatives from Autism Speaks, the major American campaign of which Autism Speaks in the UK is an affiliate. Many of those attending have personal experience of autism, either as parents or carers of those affected or in their professional lives.

For further information contact:

Hilary Gilfoy, Autism Speaks – 01491 614509/07973 224240

hilary.gilfoy@autismspeaks.org.uk

Michelle de Leo, LLM Communications – 020 7269 9312/07734 101086

michelle@llm.co.uk