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Is autism becoming an epidemic in the United States? Well, according to the CDC, one out of every 88 people will be on the autistic spectrum. In fact, if you look even harder at the numbers, one out of every 54 boys will have autism. Watch this amazing clip from back in 2012. Thank you, and thank you for calling this hearing. Autism is becoming a growing epidemic in the United States, and it definitely needs to be addressed. And I want to compliment, really, Congressman Burton for his leadership. He is not here now. I think he is. Is he here? And for being the chairman of this committee and doing such a fine job, but you have really focused on this, and I think you have made some progress. And I want to thank you for your leadership on this issue and so many others and express my gratitude to you and how much I have enjoyed working with you. Now, the numbers that he pointed out earlier, that it used to be one in 10,000 kids got autism. It is now one in 88, and I would like to ask Dr. Boyle why. And I don't want to hear that we have better detection. We have better detection, but detection would not account for a jump from one in 10,000 to one in 88. That is a huge, huge, huge jump. What other factors could be part of making that happen besides better detection? Take better detection off the table. I agree we have better detection, but it doesn't account for those numbers. So, just to put it in context, better detection is accounting for some of it, like Dr. Martin said. Right, I know, some. But what other factors? I don't want to hear. What other factors? Our surveillance program counts cases of autism and establishes the prevalence. It doesn't tell us all the answers to the questions as to why. We are doing a number of studies to try to understand the why. And one of the things that we have looked at, we have tried to look at what has changed in the environment of things that we know are risk factors for autism, things like preterm birth and birth weight and various. Well, are you looking at vaccinations? Is that part of your studies? Let me just finish this one. No, I have a question. Are you looking at vaccinations? Is that part of your, pardon me? So there is a large literature, as I mentioned. Are you having a study on vaccinations and the fact that they're cramming them down and having kids have nine at one time? Is that a call? Do you have any studies on vaccinations? There have been a number of studies done by CDC on vaccinations as well. Could you send them to the ranking member and the chairman here? Now, I want to tell you a story. We all react to our lives. And I remember people talking about hormone replacement. That's going to save women's lives. You got to take it. Yet every nurse I talked to said, go to the bank, it causes cancer. Every relative that got cancer said they got it because of the hormone replacement. I'm hearing the same kinds of stories on vaccination. I must have had 50 different parents write me or come to me and say I had a healthy child, yet then they had ten, nine, six vaccinations at one time and that child changed overnight and was knocking their head on the wall and it was a changed child. In fact, I had a family in my office today where the mother broke down crying, saying my child was wonderful, bright, precocious, talking. She took those vaccinations and the child became very incredibly sick and has never recovered. So I'm interested in any studies on vaccinations and trying to understand that. Now it used to be that you go and get a vaccination. My child never got more than three at a time. And in the state of New York, children are recommended to get six shots every two months throughout the first year of a child. And my question is why does a schedule of these vaccinations require a child to receive so many shots in such a short period of time? You could plan those shots over a period of time. I'm for vaccinations. They prevent disease. I'm totally for it. But why do you have to have cram nine, six at one time when the verbal evidence seems so strong from so many people that they had a healthy child until they got vaccinated? And you've got to just listen, you know, I remember smoking. That was on the city council. I sat through so many hearings where they vowed smoking was not bad for your health. It's a common sense that it was bad for your health. Then finally the surgeon general said it was bad for your health. The same thing seemed to be here with the vaccinations. There's too much verbal evidence coming from parents where they break down. I had a normal child. I gave them a vaccination and then they became, they came down with autism. So it seems to me we should, I would, I'd start spacing it out. Why do we have to have nine vaccinations, six vaccinations every two months? Why can't we do it over two or three years and space it and wait for the scientific evidence or whatever? Gentlelady's time has expired. May she answer that question? If you could, if you could summarize. Sure. There is a federal advisory committee that determines the vaccination schedule. And the reason, and again I'll, we'll clarify this and get you more information, but the reason, the reason they cluster the vaccines is really to try to make sure that everyone gets it. People don't, and again, we're trying to make sure vaccines go to all children and not everybody goes to the doctor routinely. So they use, they use that opportunity to make sure that happens. Thank you. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Buchanan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to recognize. Well, if these kinds of topics interest you, check out the greater good. You can find it at framingtheworld.tv. Thank you. Thank you.