According to the group, Autism Speaks, today is Autism Awareness day, and everyone is to wear blue.
While the idea of making the NT world aware of autism is good, I am not sure Autism Speaks is the group to promote this.
Autism Speaks was founded by the grandparents of a boy who was found to have autism. They are, in their own words, “dedicated to funding global biomedical research into the causes, prevention, treatments, and cure for autism” and they “aim to bring the autism community together as one strong voice to urge the government and private sector to listen to our concerns and take action to address this urgent global health crisis.” (Mission) So their guiding principle is that autism is something that needs to be prevented, treated, and cured, and is a health crisis.
Autism Speaks has their IRS Form 990, “Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax” for 2008 available online. Here’s what I see.
Autism Speaks received about $66 million income in 2008, from donations and investments. They paid out $25.6 million, for a percentage of 38%. [62% of the money they collected went to run the organization and raise funds. For comparison, the American Red Cross spends less than 10% on it income on administration and fund raising.] They had 258 employees, and a total payroll of about 18 million. But that wasn’t divided evenly. The President earned about $400 thousand, the vice-president, $250 thousand. The Chief Science Officer earned $670 thousand including benefits! 36 employees made over $100,000 in 2008. [For a more detailed look at the salaries, look at this page.]
Who got the money Autism Speaks did give out? The bulk of it went to universities and hospitals, for “autism research”. There were also a number of donations to childrens’ centers and summer camps, and a few to regional autism and Aspergers clinics.
This video sums up the position Autism Speaks takes. Pay attention to the words used to describe autism — an evil, horrible disease, waiting to ruin the lives of everyone it touches.
While it is true that people on the low end of the autism spectrum need special help and may never function as productive members of society, there are far more people with mild to moderate spectrum issues. For us, autism is not a disease, not a horrible thing to fight against, but simply a different way of looking at the world, one that may not fit in with our current culture, but not wrong, not evil. We don’t need a “cure” for autism, any more than we need a cure for blue eyes (even though blue-eyed people have more cases of skin cancer than brown-eyed people).
I speak for myself. My kids speak for themselves too. We don’t need to wear blue to make you aware of us. And for today, my blog will not be wearing blue, either.
