Funding for Autism Research Nearly Doubles

By Justmommies

Yahoo! news released an article written by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, where she reveals an important initiative for President Obama's administration -- autism research.

"Last Wednesday, President Obama visited the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to announce the single biggest investment in biomedical research in American history. Among the $5 billion in grants he announced are new explorations of longtime research targets from cancer to heart disease. But the grants also include the largest-ever investment in an Obama administration priority that has so far gone mostly unnoticed: autism research."

Sebelius continues to explain that Obama has made it a priority from day one of his presidency to focus on autism. "President Obama has backed this plan by adding $1 billion to his budget for autism over the next eight years. Altogether, the federal government will provide nearly twice as much funding for autism research in the upcoming fiscal year as we had just three years ago."

"We needed a new focus and new resources because autism has emerged as an urgent public health challenge. As recently as the 1990s, scientists thought autism was a rare disorder that affected 1 in every 2000 kids. Earlier this decade, we revised that estimate to say that 1 in every 150 kids was somewhere on the autism spectrum."

Read the full article here.

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