Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Mar2009 Neurodevelopmental disorders skyrocket in NJ

March 5, 2009
We noticed that the list of neurodevelopmental disorders linked to vaccine components is nearly mirrored in the list of disorders that qualify children in NJ for Early Intervention Services. Since all of NJ is looking at costs lately, let’s check some out…
In January of 2009, Maureen Drummond, on behalf of the Coalition, made an inquiry to her own district representatives. She cited several articles linking vaccine components with the same neurodevelopmental disorders which qualify children for Early Intervention Services (EIS). Ms. Drummond sought to establish the correlation between the increased number of vaccinations and the rising cost of EIS. She asked:

Q: What is the State's overall budget for Early Intervention Services in education, per annum, from years 1998-2008?

A: The DHSS appropriations for the years FY 1998- FY 2009 for Early Intervention Services, for infants and children up to three years of age are below. Please note that these amounts do not include federal funds and parent co-payments/ cost sharing.

FY 1998: $15 million
FY 1999: $18.7 million
FY 2000: $22 million
FY 2001: $22.3 million
FY 2002: $27 million
FY 2003: $40.7 million
FY 2004: $42.9 million
FY 2005: $52.9 million
FY 2006: $71.7 million
FY 2007: $90.5 million
FY 2008: $100.1 million
FY 2009: $100.1 million

Maureen's note: This reflects an $85.1 million increase in just one decade. What more are the qualified children getting for this $85 million increase? Or do we just have that many more children needing EIS?

The information was coalesced into a 2 page brief, which was distributed at a legislator event in March 2009. (file download to follow)

A subsequent letter has been written to request the data on Special Education Services which covers children beyond age three. We speculate that these numbers will be even more staggering.

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