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Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) provides general information of interest to the autism community. The information comes from a variety of sources and TACA does not independently verify any of it. The views expressed herein are not necessarily TACA’s. TACA does not engage in lobbying or other political activities.

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TACA E-Newsletter

December 2009 #2

Here is your update on TACA (Talk About Curing Autism). If you are new to our site... WELCOME! This newsletter is produced two to four times each month.

We are an autism education and support group. We want to make this e-newsletter informative for you. As always, contact us your thoughts and/or questions so we can improve it.

We focus on parent information and support, parent mentoring, dietary intervention, the latest in medical research, special education law, reviews of the latest treatments, and many other topics relating to autism. Our main goal is to build our community so we can connect, share and support each other.

Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) provides general information of interest to the autism community. The information comes from a variety of sources and TACA does not independently verify any of it. The views expressed herein are not necessarily TACA’s.

1. Find a TACA Meeting

Come to a TACA Meeting!

TACA holds monthly meetings in many locations throughout the United States that feature educational speakers on important topics and allow family members to connect with one another and stay on top of the latest information in the autism world. Each TACA group maintains a resource library of the latest autism books, CDs and DVDs that can be checked out by members at no charge.

Check out our group listings: each contains information on TACA meetings and special events as well as a contact form.

Are you wondering what happens at a TACA meeting? Watch our video.

2. Join Us for Coffee Talk!

Come and receive some extra support or to chat all topics related to autism and meet other TACA families at these informal, monthly get-togethers.

› Birmingham, AL
› Huntsville, AL
› Bakersfield, CA
› Burbank, CA
› Long Beach, CA
› Orange County, CA
› Redlands, CA
› Visalia, CA
› Indianapolis, IN
› Glen Burnie, MD
› Gaithersburg, MD
› Hamilton, NJ
› Las Vegas, NV
› Tullahoma, TN
› Virginia Beach, VA
› Madison, WI
› Milwaukee, WI

3. What Basic Foods are Allowed on the GFCFSF Diet?

GFCFSF Diet Quick Reference Guide

You’re starting the diet and after reading all the “No-No” lists, you are trying to figure out what IS allowed on the diet. Here is a partial list. 

Please remember that while these things are allowed on the GFCFSF diet, your child may also be allergic or sensitive to them so they may need to be removed. (How do I know if my child has an allergy or sensitivity to any foods?)

• Eggs
  Fresh eggs are allowed. Organic, free range are the best.

• Fresh meat (from the meat section of the store)
  Do not choose anything prepared like marinated or stuffed or breaded, just plain meats. Pasture/grass fed is better than grain fed. Organic is best.
  
  Most smoked meats in the grocery will contain ingredients your child cannot have like MSG, nitrates/nitrites, casein, soy or wheat.  Unless you can verify the smoked meat is free of all these things, don’t buy it.

• Rice
  Preferably organic. White, brown, jasmine. Plain, not boxed mixes or with flavored rice.

• Corn

• Potatoes
  Fresh, not in a box. Most frozen potatoes contain either gluten, casein, soy, MSG or sulfites, so read labels.

• Beans and Legumes
  Dry and unseasoned canned beans and legumes are allowed.

• Vegetables (Canned/frozen/fresh)
  Plain (unflavored) vegetables are allowed on the diet. Fresh has the most vitamins and nutrients, then frozen, then canned. Cans may have BPA-filled plastic lining (avoid cans with white interiors) and tin/aluminum.  If you must buy canned, buy in glass if possible.

• Fruits (Canned/frozen/fresh)
  Plain (unflavored) fruits are acceptable on the diet. Fresh has the most vitamins and nutrients, then frozen, then canned. Cans may have BPA-filled plastic lining (avoid cans with white interiors) and tin/aluminum. If you must buy canned, buy in glass if possible.

• Dried Fruits
  Most will contain sulfites so you need to read the labels and avoid any with sulfites. Some raisins are dusted with wheat to keep them from sticking and because the wheat flour isn’t an ingredient, the label won’t tell you. Make sure you contact the manufacturer if you use raisins.

• Nuts
  Choose only unflavored nuts. Walnuts, cashews, pine nuts, almonds, peanuts (not dry roasted), pecans, etc. Remember, that nuts are one of the major allergens so your child may be allergic to them.

• Coconut Milk

• Fruit Juice
  Only 100% fruit juice is allowed. However any juice in aluminum-lined boxes or pouches, such as Capri Sun, should be avoided as aluminum can leech into the juice. Also, juice is ok, but should be given in limited quantities as they contain a high-sugar content. The rule is no more than 6 ounces per day of juice/milk substitute, total.

• Milk Substitutes
  Almond, hemp, potato, rice, hazelnut, etc.( provided they are GFCFSF) are ok, but should be given in limited quantities as they contain a high-sugar content. The rule is no more than 6 ounces per day of juice/milk substitute, total. Another note on milk substitutes is that rice milk can contain ARSENIC and that any of these that come in aluminum lined boxes, that aluminum can leech into the milk.

As a rule, anything premixed with flavors will be off-limits but plain whole ingredients like rice, corn, vegetables, meats, potatoes, eggs, fruits and nuts are allowed, provided your child isn’t allergic or sensitive to them. (How do I know if my child has an allergy or sensitivity to any foods?)

4. Have a Yummy Holiday!

Our GFCFSF recipe database is loaded with special recipes for your whole family to enjoy over the holidays. Check it out!

5. CDC Brings Bad Tidings: 40,000 Children Diagnosed With Autism In This Year Alone

6. Daily Autism Updates for Families

All news related to autism:  

For daily updates to all autism legislative issues: ChangeforAutism.org

AgeofAutism.com

7. In autism, medication is only a partial answer

Boston.com, By Claudia M. Gold

AT AGE 3, Evan would run around in circles in preschool, and did not engage in play with other children. He was easily overwhelmed by sensory input and had frequent meltdowns. An expert at a major medical center gave him a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder. With intensive support from his family, teachers and therapists, he learned to manage his difficulties.

Once he exploded at a children’s concert where all the other children were quietly sitting on the laps of their mothers. His mother spent that concert sitting with him in the coat closet next to the auditorium, where he was close enough to hear yet not be overwhelmed. She talked to him about how loud noises were hard for him, without conveying a sense that he had been “bad.’’ She was giving him the language to think about what was happening to him. Now 11, Evan plays several instruments, and loves to sing and dance on stage. He has friends and excels in school.

In my behavioral pediatrics practice, I see many families who are struggling under the strain of raising children like Evan. Laura’s parents had to forgo social events because of her unusual behavior. They felt like outcasts. Adam’s mother relied on her visits with me to get support in dealing with his inflexibility. But her husband blamed her for Adam’s behavior. Eventually this marriage fell apart. Parents of these children need ongoing supportive relationships that validate their experience. Such relationships can help them to hold their child in the way that Evan’s mother held him in that coat closet.

A study published in the current issue of Pediatrics gives me hope. An intervention, the Early Start Denver Model, was offered in the homes of families, with parent, child, and therapist playing together. In the two-year study period, toddlers diagnosed with autism showed significant improvement in behavior, language, and IQ. The authors attribute the success of their intervention to the fact that it is “delivered within an affectively rich, relationship-focused context.’’

At the same time, there has been increasing attention given to use of drugs for children with autism. Abilify, a powerful second-generation antipsychotic, was given approval by the Food and Drug Administration to treat the irritability seen in this disorder. A recent study addressed the use of risperidone, another second-generation antipsychotic, in treatment of tantrums associated with autistic spectrum disorder. The latest issue of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology News, a newsletter for professionals, was devoted to psychotropic drugs for autism.

I often recommend medication for children. For attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), medication can make the difference between success and failure in school. Some children severely affected by autism cannot function without medication. But because medication is the “standard of care’’ for treatment of ADHD, there is often an over-reliance on drugs, on the part of parents, teachers, and physicians, to treat complex problems. I worry that the same could become true for autism.

If we describe Evan as “irritable’’ or “explosive,’’ he might be a candidate for antipsychotics, which have been shown to be effective at eliminating this behavior. But another way to describe the behavior is “dysregulated.’’ These children have a very difficult time with self regulation. They get overwhelmed by sights, sounds, and smells. They may have rigid obsessive behaviors that serve to protect them from the barrage of disorganized sensory input they experience.

Contemporary research integrating developmental psychology and neuroscience demonstrates that children learn to regulate emotions in relationships. Intense experiences that are beyond the capacity of a child to self-regulate can be co-regulated with the help of people close to him.

Recent statistics put the prevalence of autism at around 1 in 100. Aggressive marketing tactics have made second-generation antipsychotics among the highest-selling classes of drugs in the United States. A study published this fall showed that these drugs cause rapid weight gain in children. Add to these facts an epidemic of childhood obesity and a culture that looks for a quick fix over a long-term solution, and we have a potentially dangerous mix.

The Pediatrics study points in the direction of devoting resources to nurturing relationships in treatment of autism.

When considering medication, I hope all who care for these children will exercise extreme caution.

8. CDC Study Expected to Announce 1 in 100 Autism Rate

A Startling 50% Jump in Just Two Years. Evidence Points to an Environmental Trigger

Age of Autism

CDC Study Expected to Announce 1 in 100 Autism Rate—A Startling 50% Jump in Just Two Years. Evidence Points to an Environmental Trigger. SafeMinds calls for more targeted environmental research and vaccine safety studies to begin immediately.

Atlanta, GA – Researchers report that autism has risen to an epidemic rate of 1 in 100 children in a study to be released on Friday by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network office of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), This rate represents a 50% increase between the two birth cohort years of 1994 and 1996 and mirrors a recent study released by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which found a rate of 1 in 91 children, 1 in 58 boys.

In 2007, the ADDM released a similar study conducted in 2002 examining children born in 1994 that found the autism rate to be 1 in 150. In the study to be released Friday, the CDC looked at children born in 1996 (8 years old in 2004) and determined that there was a substantial increase of 50% between those two birth years.

This study and other recently published research clearly indicate that autism cannot solely be caused by genetic differences because it is impossible for genetic diseases to increase at such astronomical rates. It also cannot be explained by better diagnosing, changes in diagnostic criteria or migration patterns. It is clearly triggered by the environment. It’s well past time that CDC and NIH treat the autism epidemic with the national emergency status it deserves and act with crisis level response.

Though alarming, researchers MUST acknowledge the obvious trend and its connection to the environment to help children. This conclusion is supported by an NIH funded study released earlier this year by the UC Davis M.I.N.D, Institute which “found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating.” The study’s lead investigator, Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto , a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher, added, “It’s time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California.”

The two ADDM reports from 1994 and 1996 birth years provide autism researchers a significant investigative clue by narrowing the years needed to investigate what changed in the environment to trigger such an increase in autism in such a short time frame.

The skyrocketing increase in autism in the 1990’s and 2000’s came at a time when mercury emissions have been increasing worldwide, the content of mercury in infant vaccines more than tripled, and the number of vaccines given to children went from 18 shots to 36 shots today. Now, it is determined that autism increased at an incredible 50% between 1994 and 1996 at the same time that the uptake rate of the Hepatitis B vaccine among infants accelerated immensely. This vaccine series added 62.5 more micrograms of mercury to babies, putting them over the the dose considered safe by the EPA for an average weight infant.

The Hepatitis B vaccine at birth has also received sharp criticism from advocates after a recent study by Laura Hewitson, University of Pittsburgh, which found that infant macaques given the Hep B birth dose, adjusted for macaque weight, showed statistically significant developmental delays.

SafeMinds calls on the CDC and the National Institutes of Health Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) to close vaccine safety research gaps identified by the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) in an independent and transparent manner. We ask that the government appropriate money immediately to compare ALL health outcomes among fully vaccinated children with those of unvaccinated children. Incredibly, such a study has never been done for any single vaccine nor the entire vaccine schedule collectively and has now been officially identified as a vaccine safety gap by NIH’s own scientific advisory committee, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC).

The US government has spent billions on a failed H1N1 vaccination program, and to date, the CDC has yet to respond to the NVAC's Recommendations to the to improve vaccine safety. These recommendations for greater vaccine safety were echoed in an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report released Friday (11th).

They stated that the United States needs to establish a permanent group that advises the government on vaccine safety and substantially increase research monies to improve vaccine safety and address public concern. “How many more scientific advisory reports need to be issued before the government chooses to protect vulnerable populations from vaccine injury?”, asked Theresa Wrangham, President of SafeMinds.

Additionally, SafeMinds calls on the IACC and National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to initiate research using existing data from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to facilitate the establishment of reference ranges for mercury and other developmental toxicants, especially for vulnerable subgroups like women of child-bearing age and young children. Such a study could look for associations between higher body burdens of toxicants and a range of childhood health outcomes could help to assess levels of exposure that are unsafe, and could help set research priorities for toxicants which have the greatest potential to diminish human health. This information would facilitate the type of cause and treatment oriented research that is so desperately needed.

SafeMinds is a charitable non-profit and leader in funding and advancing the science regarding mercury exposure as it relates to autism. Our expertise extends beyond mercury-related exposures to broader vaccine safety issues, as many of our Board Members hold government agency committee positions such as the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, various CDC Vaccine Committees, the Department of Defense Autism Spectrum Disorder Research Program and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee’s Vaccine Safety Working Group.

9. New AAP Website-- Autism: 'It's Not Environmentally Caused'

Age of Autism, By Anne Dachel

December 10, U.S. News ran the article: New Kids' Health Site Offers Advice From Pediatricians by Nancy Shute. (HERE)

Shute wrote, “Seeking advice from pediatricians on your kids’ health just got easier. The American Academy of Pediatrics today launched a website, healthychildren.org, in an effort to bring ‘pediatrician-approved health information’ to the often-confusing world of online medical advice.”

Lots of information is included on the site about vaccinations. We’re told, “The use of vaccines has led to major improvements in child health over a relatively short period. Many of the infectious illnesses you or your parents had as children, from chickenpox to polio to measles, no longer affect most children today. If you follow the immunization guidelines recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), you can help make your child healthier than was ever possible in earlier generations.”

You can find information on every vaccine in the schedule.

You have to dig around, but you can find autism included too. If you hit Health Issues, you’ll find a list of conditions which don’t include autism. However, if you go to “Developmental Disabilities," you can view the close-up photo of an obviously pregnant woman’s stomach, next to the bold-face type, “Congenital Abnormalities.” If you then scroll down to the listing to “Mental Retardation and Pervasive Developmental Disorders,” your hit will tell you about “Autism and Related Disorders.” At this point it gets a little murky because instead of reading about just autism, you’ll also find info on mental retardation, PDD, ADHD, and Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s all a kind of cloudy mix of developmental problems and I pity the parent who just learned their child has autism.
Under treatment, the AAP tells us, “Medication may be helpful for specific symptoms,” but there are side effects.

Other than that, the AAP says,

“Most children with mental retardation/ADHD or PDD/ADHD will be able to remain in a regular public school, but may need special education–related services such as speech/language therapy and behavior management programs. Children with more serious forms of PDD, including autism, require a more intense program of behavior therapy than that used for children with ADHD alone. You can further support your child’s progress by educating yourself about his condition, monitoring the latest research on his areas of disability, and advocating for his rights and appropriate services within the public school system.”

That’s official then parents, you’re on your own. It’s up to you to educate yourselves.

In addition, if you really are interested in learning about autism, you can go back to “Health Issues” and hit “View All.” There you’ll find "Autism" listed. (HERE)

Here’s where all the details about autism are located. They list the eleven signs of autism you should look for by 18 months. I couldn’t miss the stunning comment, “Because autism is a genetic disorder,…”

We’re told that thanks to increased awareness, we’re now finding this genetic disorder everywhere. It's nothing to worry about though.

The AAP says, “Many experts have attributed the increased prevalence of autism in recent years not to a greater incidence of the disorder itself but to improved awareness of the early signs and symptoms by parents and pediatricians alike. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently revised the autism diagnosis rate from 5 in 10,000 to roughly 6 in 1,000 (or nearly 1 in 150) children.”

According to the AAP, the CDC only “recently” upped the rate from 5 in 10,000 to "nearly 1 in 150." It seems that they missed the more current rate of one in every 91 kids, one in every 58 boys. No matter, it’s all, “Improved Awareness.”

Under the title, “Getting Past the Myths,” the AAP includes commentary by Paul Lipkin, M.D., FAAP, director for the Center of Development and Learning at the Kennedy
Krieger Institute and immediate past chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Children with Disabilities.

'There has been a feeling that autism is a problem of children’s emotions or that it relates to how parents raise their child,' explains Lipkin. 'In fact, we know it’s primarily a problem in communication that children are born with that just becomes apparent over time.'

“Another myth is that routine vaccinations can bring on autism in a normally developing child. Many studies have looked at this claim and, to date, none have found any scientific evidence to support it. There are a lot of people suggesting that there are things in the environment or in vaccines that are causing autism,' notes Lipkin. ‘It’s not environmentally caused. It’s something that’s congenital.’

“To avoid the myths and misconceptions, concerned parents should always start with their child’s pediatrician, who can rule out other medical conditions and evaluate the child using a simple screening test.”

There you have it--autism is caused not by bad parenting, but by bad genes. There are no environmental triggers. There’s no mention of curing your child, since you can’t change the genetic make-up a child is born with.

Nothing ever changes when it comes to autism, according to the AAP. This great new info site has nothing but the same old tired claims. It's hard to image any parent even bothering to look at it when it comes to finding out about autism.

Going back to the U.S. News article, I find myself agreeing with Nancy Shute’s assessment, ‘If this site is destined to be the definitive resource on children’s health, it’s got to do better than that.’

Anne Dachel is Media Editor of Age of Autism.

10. Swine Flu Pandemic May Be Less Severe Than Expected

USNews.com

Data indicates that, while serious, virus impact predicted to be mild

TUESDAY, Dec. 8 (HealthDay News) -- A new joint American-British study suggests that the impact of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic during the autumn-winter flu season will be less severe than had been feared.

"As more detailed data have become available, we have been able to improve our estimates of how severe this disease is. Early on, it was difficult to measure the flu's impact and it was crucial to plan for the full range of possible outcomes. Fortunately, the virus now appears to be near the milder end," study senior author Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, said in a news release.

The study authors analyzed the pandemic in the United States by looking at national statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local statistics in Milwaukee and New York City. Researchers chose those two cities because they thought they did a good job of keeping statistics.

In particular, the researchers made their projections by examining the number of people who were hospitalized or in an intensive care unit or on a ventilator, along with the total of those who had died.

"The good news is that, along with previous work by the CDC and others, our work shows that the severity of the H1N1 flu may be less than initially feared," Lipsitch said. But between one in 70 and one in 600 people who get the illness will be hospitalized, he noted.

"This is a serious disease," he added. "The CDC and others have shown that certain high-risk groups, including pregnant women, people with asthma and people with compromised immune systems, should be vaccinated and should seek prompt treatment if they suspect they are sick with H1N1. Even for people outside these high-risk groups, vaccination is an important way to reduce the risk of what can be a serious illness."

The study is published in the Dec. 7 online edition in the journal PLoS Medicine.

11. U.S. needs to focus more on vaccine safety: report

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The United States needs to establish a permanent group that advises the government on vaccine safety and spend more money to address safety concerns about vaccines, the Institute of Medicine said Friday.

U.S. | HEALTH

The institute, one of the National Academies of Sciences that advises U.S. policymakers, called for a stronger, more focused national vaccine strategy that sets the nation's vaccine research agenda.

"While the immunization system has functioned well through the years, we may have missed opportunities," Claire Broome of Emory University, Atlanta, who chaired the committee that wrote the report, said in a statement.

The committee reviewed a draft of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Vaccine Plan, which sets the national agenda for protecting Americans from vaccine-preventable illness.

"Because vaccines and immunization constitute a major public health matter that involves multiple government agencies and has great importance to the public's health, an effective coordinating entity is needed," the committee said in the report.

They said the National Vaccine Program Office at HHS, which has taken a lead in ensuring the safety of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, could serve this purpose, but it currently lacks adequate authority and influence.

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE

They said the revised plan also should include a strategy to speed the development of high-priority vaccines, and expand funding for safety research and monitoring -- including the development of a national communications strategy to bolster public confidence in vaccines.

Increasingly, fears about possible health threats such as autism from childhood vaccinations have led a small proportion of parents to refuse the shots for their children. That has raised the prospect that vaccine-preventable illnesses such as measles and whooping cough may reappear in clusters.

The committee said it found no evidence of an overarching strategy to address misinformation about vaccines.

"Simply promoting the use of vaccines no longer meets the needs of individuals and families seeking to make informed decisions amidst a maelstrom of conflicting messages," the committee wrote in the report.

They said communication about vaccine safety "has been largely reactive to crises, and has been conducted by a small and underresourced staff" at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They said information about vaccine safety needs to be communicated in a strategic and comprehensive manner to help inform decision making about vaccine use.

The committee also called for research and development of a single vaccine that would work against all influenza viruses.

And they called for a centralized research agenda, noting that most vaccine research and development in the United States stems from the interests of individual researchers, rather than a set of national priority targets.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Xavier Briand)

12. NYT Reports CDC Failed to Properly Screen Vaccine Advisors for Conflicts of Interest

Read the full article by Gardiner Harris in the New York Times, below.

WASHINGTON — A new report finds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a poor job of screening medical experts for financial conflicts when it hired them to advise the agency on vaccine safety, officials said Thursday.

Most of the experts who served on advisory panels in 2007 to evaluate vaccines for flu and cervical cancer had potential conflicts that were never resolved, the report said. Some were legally barred from considering the issues but did so anyway.

In the report, expected to be released Friday, Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, found that the centers failed nearly every time to ensure that the experts adequately filled out forms confirming they were not being paid by companies with an interest in their decisions...

13. Advisers on Vaccines Often Have Conflicts, Report Says

NY Times, By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 17, 2009
WASHINGTON — A new report finds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a poor job of screening medical experts for financial conflicts when it hired them to advise the agency on vaccine safety, officials said Thursday.

Related
Document: CDC's Ethics Program for Special Government Employees on Federal Advisory Committees
(pdf)
Most of the experts who served on advisory panels in 2007 to evaluate vaccines for flu and cervical cancer had potential conflicts that were never resolved, the report said. Some were legally barred from considering the issues but did so anyway.

In the report, expected to be released Friday, Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, found that the centers failed nearly every time to ensure that the experts adequately filled out forms confirming they were not being paid by companies with an interest in their decisions.

The report found that 64 percent of the advisers had potential conflicts of interest that were never identified or were left unresolved by the centers. Thirteen percent failed to have an appropriate conflicts form on file at the agency at all, which should have barred their participation in the meetings entirely, Mr. Levinson found. And 3 percent voted on matters that ethics officers had already barred them from considering.

The inspector general recommended that the centers do a far better job of screening. In a reply, the agency’s new director, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, agreed.

“Since the period covered in this review, C.D.C. has strengthened the financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest process by instituting improved business processes and realigning responsibilities and oversight,” Dr. Frieden wrote.

As numerous medicines have been pulled from the market in recent years, worries have grown that experts may be recommending medical products — even ones they know to be unsafe — in part because manufacturers are paying them.

As a result, government agencies, medical societies and medical journals have become increasingly insistent that experts disclose potential conflicts. And while the experts invariably insist that they have done so, government audits routinely find large gaps between these disclosures and the experts’ actual income from consulting.

Congress tightened the rules on outside consulting after similar conflicts were found among members of advisory panels to the Food and Drug Administration. But little attention has been paid to the potential conflicts of advisers to the C.D.C., even though that agency’s committees have significant influence over what vaccines are sold in the United States, what tests are performed to detect cancer and how coal miners are protected.

Most of the advisers identified by Mr. Levinson had either a job or a grant from a company or other entity whose interests were affected by the committees’ discussions, and a considerable number also owned stock in such companies, the report said.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who said she had long been a supporter of the C.D.C., said: “That is why I am so concerned about this report issued by the inspector general exposing serious ethics violations within the C.D.C. All members of the federal advisory committees, whose recommendations direct federal policy, should be without conflict of interest.”

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