Items 1 through 5 have been deleted, since they are primarily for families
living in Virginia and Maryland, and I did not want to send useless
information to the folks in the rest of the country. However, please let me
know if you live in Virginia, Maryland or DC; so that I can add you to my
private email distribution list for events in those states.


6. The National Down Syndrome Society has joined Special Olympics in
support of "The Ringer," an upcoming Farrelly brothers' film that uses humor
to challenge destructive stereotypes of people with intellectual
disabilities. The film opens at theaters nationwide on December 23, 2005.
"The Ringer" tells the story of Steve Barker, a young man who pretends to
have an intellectual disability so he can compete in and "fix" a Special
Olympics event. However, Barker's attitude changes as he develops
friendships with several of the Special Olympics athletes. He learns, as
will moviegoers, that people with intellectual disabilities are more like
the rest of us than they are different. The athletes in the film listen to
music, play video games, watch the latest movies, and work together toward
athletic excellence - all while having fun. Instead of tugging at the
heartstrings, "The Ringer" uses the typical outrageous Farrelly Brothers'
humor ("There's Something about Mary," "Stuck on You," "Shallow Hal") to
promote the message that just like everyone else, individuals with
intellectual disabilities are people first, each with their own interests,
talents, abilities, and personalities. The movie also features more than 150
people with intellectual disabilities in small parts and supporting roles.

7. "Autistic man ruled incompetent" dated 13 December 2005 by Doug Staley
from Inde Online.com at
<http://www.indeonline.com/left.php?ID=5142&r=2&Category=1>
http://www.indeonline.com/left.php?ID=5142&r=2&Category=1.

"A 32-year-old Massillon man accused of stabbing his half-brother to death
in September has been declared incompetent to stand trial. Stark County
Common Pleas Judge Sara Lioi ruled Monday Bryan Lee Ellis should be
committed to Heartland Behavioral Health for treatment based on a recently
completed psychological evaluation. Assistant Stark County Prosecutor
Jennifer Dave and Barry Wakser, Ellis' attorney, both stipulated to the
report from the Akron Psychological and Diagnostic Clinic. Wakser, who could
not be reached for comment Monday afternoon, earlier filed a motion
requesting Ellis undergo testing. Ellis, who suffers from autism, a
developmental disability that severely affects a person's ability to
communicate and socially interact with others, stabbed Rodney Yoder in the
chest with a kitchen knife Sept. 11 in the driveway of the Geiger Avenue
Southwest home they shared, according to police. The wound perforated
Yoder's heart, causing massive blood loss. Yoder, a father of five, later
died at Massillon Community Hospital. The pair reportedly had been drinking
at a local bar earlier that evening but, according to family members,
appeared to be getting along before the stabbing occurred. Ellis later
pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to one count of murder, a
first-degree felony, and one count of felonious assault, a second-degree
felony. The incompetency ruling indicates Ellis, in his current mental
state, is unable to assist his attorney with the defense of his case,
according to Dave. "They have a year for which they can restore him to
competence," Dave said. "The report indicated he was restorable (to
competence)." ..."

8. "Government Tests Readiness for Pandemic" dated 10 December 2005 by
Jennifer Loven from The Assocaited Press in SF Gate.com at
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/12/10/national/w12204
4S29.DTL>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/12/10/national/w122044
S29.DTL.

"After role-playing an outbreak of pandemic flu, federal officials said
Saturday that saving lives and containing the economic damage will require
more planning in local communities and increased production of vaccines and
medications. "This is a time for us to be informing but not inflaming. It's
a time for us to inspire preparation but not panic," Health and Human
Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told reporters at the White House. About 20
Cabinet secretaries and government officials spent four hours testing the
government's readiness for any flu outbreak. "We have time to become the
first generation, literally, in the history of man to do something to be
prepared for a pandemic," Leavitt said. President Bush's homeland security
adviser, Fran Townsend said that in the little time left before lawmakers
adjourn for the year, Congress should approve the $7.1 billion in emergency
flu preparedness funds that the president has requested. But the prospects
for the request are not clear, as conservatives in the House oppose
rubber-stamping it without finding spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has advocated for the money.
..."

9. "We feel your pain... and your happiness too- The human brain's source
of empathy may also play a role in autism" dated 12 December 2005 by Carey
Goldberg from The Boston Globe at
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/12/12/we_feel_
your_pain_and_your_happiness_too/
<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/12/12/we_feel
_your_pain_and_your_happiness_too/> .


"Do you ever feel a twitch in your arm as you watch a baseball player wallop
the ball? When others cry, do your eyes tear up as well? Do you tense as a
TV surgeon slices into an incision? Those are your ''mirror neurons" at
work. Just over a decade ago, Italian neuroscientists studying monkeys were
amazed to discover that the brain has a system of neurons, or nerve cells,
that specialize in a sort of ''walking in another's shoes" function. Some
of the same neurons, they found, become active when a monkey actually makes
a movement and when it is only watching another monkey, or even a human,
make that same movement. It is as if the monkey is imitating -- or mirroring
-- the other's movement in its mind. The discovery of mirror neurons was
important for basic brain science, but now it is also proving medically
relevant: Researchers are reporting in the January issue of the journal
Nature Neuroscience that malfunctioning mirror neurons appear to play a
central role in the social isolation of autistic children. ''We found that,
lo and behold, the kids that had the most severe symptoms were the ones that
had the least amount of activity" in certain mirror neurons, said lead
author Mirella Dapretto of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Dapretto's team used an MRI to scan the brains of 10 autistic and 10
non-autistic children to see how their mirror neurons reacted as they saw
and imitated pictures of faces expressing anger, happiness or other emotion.
The study, the first to look at the mirror neuron system in autistic
children, found that the system was generally less active in the autistic
children than in the non-autistic ones. The findings add to a body of work
in adults suggesting that problems with mirror neurons contribute to the
trouble that autistic people have connecting with others. Autistic children
often seem unable to read emotions and intentions, and unable to develop a
''theory of mind" -- the idea that other people think and feel as they do.
..."

10. "Are U.S. Health Experts Inflating Flu Statistics?- Journal article
claims they are, but CDC expert denies the charge" dated 12 December 2005 by
Ed Edelson from Health Day News at
<http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=529590>
http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=529590.

"A Harvard grad student is charging that the U.S. government is hyping the
threat of the annual (non-avian) strains of influenza. Specifically, Peter
Doshi says, the estimate of 36,000 flu-related deaths a year by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention is unsupported by the available data.
And, he suspects, the numbers may be inflated to help drug companies sell
more flu vaccine. It's a familiar charge -- a quick scan of the Internet
turns up several Web sites claiming much the same thing -- and like many
others who make the claim, Doshi is not a medical expert. He's a student in
Harvard's department of East Asian studies. But he presents his charges
with one notable difference: They appear in the form of an article published
in this week's issue of the prestigious British Medical Journal. In his
one-page article, Doshi lauded the BMJ's "system of open discussion and open
debate through their on-line bulletin board ... a very democratic form of
scientific discourse." His criticism centers on a 2003 paper in the Journal
of the American Medical Association in which CDC experts increased their
estimate of flu-related deaths from 20,000 a year to 36,000 a year. The
reasons the agency used to justify that rise are dubious at best, Doshi
said. For one thing, the National Center for Health Statistics lists only a
few hundred deaths a year as directly caused by influenza, Doshi said. And
the major explanation for the increased estimate -- the aging of the
American population that puts more people in the highly vulnerable over-65
group -- doesn't hold water, he maintained. "The 65-plus population grew
just 12 percent between 1990 and 2000," Doshi wrote. How can the CDC justify
an estimate of 36,000 U.S. deaths a year now when there were just 34,000
deaths recorded in the 1968-1969 "Hong Kong flu" epidemic? he asked. ..."

11. "Nasa tries to figure out real-life Rain Man's brain" dated 11 December
2005 by Robin McKie from The Observer (UK) at
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1664653,00.html
<http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1664653,00.html> .

"It took Kim Peek just over an hour to read Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red
October. Four months later, when asked to give the name of the book's
Russian radio operator, Peek quoted the entire relevant passage. It was a
prodigious feat. Yet for Peek - the real-life 'savant' on whom Dustin
Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man is based - such recall only gives a
glimpse of his powers. He knows 9,000 books off by heart; he can direct
people around US cities from maps he has memorised years ago; and he has
total recall of the dates of all major world events. Now studies of Peek's
abilities are being used by scientists to shed intriguing light on the human
mind, and to open the way for men and women to exploit far more of their
intellectual potential, as the latest issue of Scientific American reveals.
'Kim's story tells us that the human brain is far more flexible than we had
thought,' said Darold Treffert, a psychiatrist and co-author of the
Scientific American paper told The Observer. 'Like many other savants, he
has suffered disability in one area of his brain, but has compensated by
acquiring remarkable new abilities in other areas. This shows we all have
considerable hidden intellectual potential. By studying Kim and other
savants, we can learn how to tap those powers.' This potential has been of
particular interest to Nasa - currently carrying out lengthy electronic
scans of Kim's brain in its attempts to understand how astronauts are using
their brains while on deep space missions. ..."

12. "Bird flu vaccine eggs all in one basket- Researchers: Not sure shots
will work but it's all they've got" dated 10 December 2005 by Caleb
Hellerman from CNN.com at
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/12/08/pdg.bird.flu.vaccine/
<http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/12/08/pdg.bird.flu.vaccine/> .

"In a handful of warehouses, at secret locations in the United States, sit
containers of vaccine that health officials fervently hope could head off an
outbreak of the killer flu. Citing national security, the Department of
Health and Human Services won't say where the vaccine is being stored, but
last week the National Institutes of Health said that by February, 7.8
million doses of vaccine that could be used against the H5N1 strain of bird
flu would be available. Since two shots, a month apart, are give to each
person, this would provide coverage for 3.9 million Americans. Those doses
are the first of the President Bush's announced plan to stockpile enough
vaccine to innoculate at least 20 million. Since September, the Department
of Health and Human Services has signed contracts worth more than $160
million with vaccine giants Sanofi Pasteur and Chiron. The experimental
vaccine against H5N1 was developed by Robert Webster of St. Jude's
Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He has spent more than
50 years trying to outsmart influenza viruses. ..."


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