Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  You're not creating the imbalance, but you are exacerbating it.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  In France, a category called orphan diseases was created to group together, with the same lobbying capacity, diseases that were not sufficiently represented to come under scrutiny. Autism has something of a special status, as if it were something more tragic or dramatic than oth

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Legislators should be informed about certain risks involved in autism research. For instance, pressure is being applied by lobby groups to bypass peer committees in cases involving false miracles. In Quebec, the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec—the equivalent of our CIHR—

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Perhaps we shouldn't harbour too many illusions about the success rate of the monitoring. One of the best therapeutic studies, which was published in The Lancet, said that small variations in case definition methods doubled the prevalence. Those involved in epidemiological studi

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Yes.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  The program varies from one province to the next, but most of the Canadian provinces are using the model that is based on the belief that intensive intervention, if applied extensively, can eliminate a child's need for services in the future. So, the model that you feel is inade

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Can I answer on the term “scientifically proven”? This is a cliché used in all the arguments for defending certain methods, especially the Lovaas technique. As I pointed out, the term “scientifically proven” is used in a misleading way. We're not talking about 52% but about 47%.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I think we should also distinguish between being better adjusted and being less autistic. The comparison being made between autism and cancer can be very misleading in some respects, since someone can be very autistic and, at the same time, be marginally adjusted or emotionally d

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Should I speak in French or English?

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  As a doctor-scientist and head of the Centre d'excellence en troubles envahissants du développement at the Université de Montréal, I would like to take five minutes to defend the idea that, in Canada, we are making a mistake right now by offering services based on diagnosis rathe

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Sorry.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  The Government of Quebec and the governments of the other provinces, I think, decided to impose a specific type of treatment for autism based on knowledge that I feel is entirely insufficient. In fact, the effect sizes for the studies that report positive effects are also insuffi

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Lastly, a little idea in the world of autism treatment. Actually, we're saying that the ABA method is scientifically established. I would like this phrase carefully examined by the policy-makers. What's been proven? The effect sizes are very small. There has been no long-term dem