In 2005 we announced the formation of AAC, Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning, a national organization that is a unified and strong political voice for the autism community. We are known simply as AAC. Our goal is to enable parents as a political force.

The purpose of AAC is to provide a hands-on lobbying and political action organization for parents of children with autistic spectrum disorder. Our initial focus is on vaccine injuries, including Thimerosal and MMR related issues, because these pose a direct threat to children, but our attention is not limited to those concerns. Almost all our children, for example, are denied basic health insurance coverage yet we pay the same premiums as other families -- we intend to stop this inequity. This is one illustration of the practical problems that confront parents. We expect to address these and other critical concerns within our community by empowering parents.

AAC does not supplant or disturb not-for-profit organizations, biomedical support groups, or any other work with which many of you have been involved. To the contrary, our purpose is to give the individuals involved in all those efforts a unified political voice, one that will be backed by the power of large numbers of parents. We have already sought out and obtained the support of many parents, and we are continuing this effort to establish a broad support base. We have received an enthusiastic response.

Many of you have already been active in lobbying activities regarding Thimerosal and many other issues affecting our children. The initial working group of AAC included parents who were deeply engaged in this effort. They included Liz Birt (Illinois), Bobbie Manning (Western NY), Rita Shreffler (MO), Lujene Clark (MO) and John Gilmore (NYC). All parents of children on the autism spectrum, we have worked alongside many of you in the past. Many of you have distinguished yourselves in your tireless legislative and political efforts. We invite you to participate with us in a collaborative endeavor. We believe that the future of our children depends upon it.

Each of us has observed that often our political efforts are ignored because we are not speaking with a unified voice. It is all too easy for legislators and staffers to be courteous and sympathetic to parents, only to ignore us once we’ve left the office. Even though many parents are extremely capable, our lack of political power as individuals has made it easy for Capitol Hill to ignore us.

Our idea, by no means novel but still bold and ambitious, is to amplify the power of individual parents and parents’ groups by becoming one political voice with a unified and coordinated political strategy. There is no reason a well organized parents’ movement cannot be as powerful as the AARP or the NRA or, to use a more recent historical example, Moveon.org.

Our organization is strictly non-partisan and non-ideological. Our working group represents the political spectrum. We hope and expect that parents of all political views will be united with us. Our one unifying political focus is to get the truth out about what has happened to our children and to make sure our children have a secure future. We will arm parents to make sure this happens. We can succeed because we will, indeed, be armed with the truth. Our sole focus will be on our kids.

Our plans include the following:

•IDENTIFYING key issues with targeted lobbying strategies
•RATING legislators with a scorecard on key issues
•ENDORSING legislation that advances our children’s interests
•ENDORSING political candidates
•OPPOSING legislation that impairs our children’s interests
•EDUCATING the woefully misinformed media
•ADVOCATING for children before state and federal agencies
   (including funding of Thimerosal related research)
•SUPPORTING other parent-led efforts to enact state legislation.
•TRAINING parents to advocate and lobby for their kids
•ORGANIZING parents at the grassroots;
•DEFENDING our kids through legal action to affirm their fundamental civil & human rights

We make parents effective lobbyists because they are part of a larger organizing effort. Together, we have power; individually, we have very little power. The only thing that has impact inside the Beltway is power; power comes from money and influence. We will never be able to match the money of some of our adversaries but we do have, tragically, large numbers of potential constituents. Our power will come from our numbers, if we are organized and unified. Our adversaries may have 1200 lobbyists in Washington. We have the potential to have 120,000 or more lobbyists and with that will come real power. With real power we can help our kids.

A great deal of effort has been made by many parents to get to this point in our organizing effort. Courageous parents pioneered the issues we care about most. Tough work, however, is ahead of us. We have been assaulted on every front — many of our initial concerns about our children are dismissed by medical experts. We are criticized for the biomedical interventions we use; we are called irrational for questioning the safety of vaccination; we are called greedy for bringing legal claims to protect the interest of our kids; and we sometimes fight with each other because we are all under the crushing stress of trying to care for very sick children.

Now is the time to come together with one voice. In that way, we can forcefully carry forward the ground-breaking efforts of these courageous parents who braved criticism to advance our cause. I hope you will all see the merit in doing so.

Our working group has much yet to do in achieving this effort. Events are moving forward rapidly with the encouraging rise in interest triggered by Evidence of Harm. This message is to alert you that there will soon be a vehicle for your political energy on behalf of your kids, if you choose to join with us in this effort. We will report back soon with an update. Your participation is vital to assure the success of AAC. We urge you all to contact us directly.

For the sake of our children, it is imperative that we succeed in this campaign. Please join us. Our children need us to be one strong voice so that they may be heard!

Please consider this an invitation to join us!