SARNote7-25-03

The Schafer Autism Report
Notes

"Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet"

Personal Account of Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Washington DC Press Conference

Hi All,

I got home at 1:30 a.m. this morning and am glad to be home.
Scott, Laura, Lori, and I drove to DC Tues. afternoon. We had several calls from the media on the way there including ABC, NBC, and Hearst Magazine. We were very encouraged.
We made reservations for 25 people at the Daily Grill Restaurant Tues. evening and 35 showed up. It was so wonderful to see such a crowd and see old faces and meet new ones. What an incredible group of people and I'm so honored just to be a part of this group.
We arrived at the press conference Wed. morning and got to work setting up. It's always such a wonderful experience to be there with all of the parents and see everyone chip in to help. Thanks everyone, the room looked great!
By 10:00 a.m. the press conference was jam packed with standing room only. The room given us was way too small. FOX news was the only major media to show up but we had David Kirby from NY Times, Bill Gentile who was doing a documentary that he's working with Bill Moyers on, Mark Benjamin from UPI, and some other smaller magazines.
I would find out that Pres. Bush coincidentally decided to have a press conference at 10:00 a.m. that morning.
Knowing that Bush rarely does press conferences, I suspect that this was done deliberately.
The panel of doctors and scientists did an incredible job and there were many gasps of shock from the crowd.
Bradstreet's and Geier's new studies were very disturbing.
The media packets were wonderful and I wish we had enough to give to parents but they were very expensive to make and we had to make sure the media and staffers had one. We'll have everything that was in the packets on the Facts for Media website and you'll be able to print everything out to make your own packet. The website is http://factsformedia.com/. Please be patient as we add more information.
Although it was a bit discouraging to once again be a part of the media black out, we had a room full of staffers that was given so much information from our panel of experts. They cannot walk away from this without questioning the safety of vaccines.
After the conference we were talking with the camera man from FOX. I cannot tell you how shocked and scared he was after hearing all of this information. He told us he had a four month old and could not believe the info. he was hearing. He said he wanted to do a full story on this and not just a sound bite and will approach his producers about it.
Congressmen Burton, Weldon, and Kucinich did an outstanding job. Kucinich blew us away with his speech and my respect grows daily for this man who is willing to make a stand for our kids. Burton and Weldon are still just as passionate about helping our kids and I'm so grateful for their support.
Laura and Scott Bono, Lori McIlwain, Lyn Redwood, Jim Moody, Bob Krakow, David Kirby, Liz Birt and I were able to meet with Clinton, Dodd, and Kennedy's office about the VICA issues. It was a very encouraging meeting and we feel like we're making headway. We talked about the children recovering and they were very interested. They had no idea that these kids could be recovered with biomedical interventions and asked lots of questions. Please share your recovery stories with your Congressmen, they need to know that autism is not hopeless and we can help our kids with biomedical intervention. Scott and Laura Bono and Lori McIlwain are so passionate and I can't imagine a better team to lead this fight to help us get a fair VICA bill. If anyone can do it, this team can.

Jo Pike