Money Problems – Research or Treatments?

It seems that money is more limited for Autism than it is for other things such as Cancer and Aids, and rightly so really, since they cause death and Autism does not… but limited money means having to make hard choices.

Autism Speaks came under fire when their *then chairman suggested that they stop funding repeated research into vaccines over and over again and turn the money towards other areas of research.

That’s all well and good for finding a prevention in the future but I think most of us parents would agree that we’d love to see more money funnelled towards the programs and organizations that actually help us right now. My son was diagnosed at 2.5 years old and was immediately put on a waiting list…. a 3 year waiting list! That’s simply unacceptable as he’d be older than 5 before receiving his first bit of helpful therapy.

Furthermore, he’d be put into school before 5 and would be in a class with 28 other ‘normal’ children with a teacher that wouldn’t be able to help him, and no aids neither. I don’t have to be a psychic to know that this would be catastrophic to his development and to his future.

My wife and I had to take it upon ourselves to find better services elsewhere, to sell our house, to pick up and move as quickly as we could to ensure that he had the help he needed.

Now, admittedly, this gives me a rather narrow view of it and a pretty biased opinion of where the money really should be spent…. what benefits my son will always be my top priority but my logical side also tells me that research is paramount to ending this sort of thing happening to parents and their children in the future.

So my question to you is, where do you think the money should be spent if we have to choose one over the other?