AAP

No, not AAPR but APP which stands for the "American Academy of Pediatrics."


As you may know, I am a member of the "Autism Hub," that's the pink logo on the sidebar.

Today members of the Hub are blogging about Autism, no big surprise there, but more especially about finding spokespersons. I'm not of a particularly scientific frame of mind and I don't know what causes autism. I do know that you don't have to look much further than the gene pool around this neck of the woods.

Here is the letter from AAP:-

Subject: parent spokespersons

Hello,

As part of our ongoing response to media stories regarding autism and
vaccines, the AAP communications department is compiling a list of
parents who support the AAP and are available for interviews. We are
looking for two types of parents who could serve as spokespersons:

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders who support
immunization and who do not believe there is any link between their
child's vaccines and his or her autism.

Parents of children who suffered a vaccine-preventable illness. This
could be a parent who declined immunization, whose child became ill
before a vaccine was available, or whose child was ineligible for
immunization.

We are asking for your help identifying parents who would be good
spokespersons. They do not need to be expert public speakers. They
just need to be open with their story and interested in speaking out
on the issue. We will contact candidates in advance to conduct
pre-interviews, to offer guidance on talking to reporters and to
obtain a signed waiver giving us permission to release their name.

If a parent were placed on our list, we would offer their name and
contact information to select media. We hope to build a list of
parents from a wide range of geographical areas.

As the Jenny McCarthy and "Eli Stone" stories illustrate, this issue
is likely to recur in the national and local media. The AAP is
committed to doing all we can to counter such erroneous reports with
factual information supported by scientific evidence and AAP
recommendations.

The anti-vaccine groups often have emotional family stories on their
side. The ability to offer a reporter an interview with a similarly
compelling parent who is sympathetic to the AAP's goals is a powerful
tool for our media relations program.

Please contact me if you have any questions or to suggest a parent to interview.

Thank you,

Susan Stevens Martin
Director, Division of Media Relations
American Academy of Pediatrics
847.434.7131

Or to email

ssmartin@aap.org (Susan Stevens Martin) direct.

You can contact them yourself here:- SPOKESPERSONS@LISTSERV.AAP.ORG

Or email me directly at m.mcewen-asker@att.net

If you could spread the word we'd be very much obliged.

[Preferably to some nice young photogenic persons who don't have funny accents]

Piccies artistically created by a smallish autistic person.