They might as well tattoo our foreheads with a bar code with 'autistic' in print right underneath it. Are we not people too?
I live in Utah, and I was officially diagnosed. If this registry does get created, then I will be glad that my official diagnoses never got written down (properly, because of some weird mistake that no one's lazy butt decided to fix).
I might dig a little deeper for you all and let you know what I find.
How can they do that?? This makes me sad. I was born in Utah...
The brochure of the registry says they will keep the names confidential, but I don't trust such things. I can envision well meaning parents making a kid's records public knowledge which might impact his future employment or privacy when he is an adult.
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The information that is collected by URADD will be protected from disclosure. We will share information about the numbers of people with ASDs to help plan for future school and health care needs. We will share only numbers with no identifying information. Researchers who are studying possible causes and treatments of ASDs and other disabilities might want to ask some people who are in the registry to take part in their studies. URADD will not share any of your personal information with researchers UNLESS they have your full permission to do so.
What has happened to privacy!! If I were i a Utah citizen I would use civil disobedience.
"One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." ~MLK
I know I'm paranoid but this is the information mining age. I wouldn't count on a guarantee of such a database remaining private. Even large organizations have significant problems trying to keep people's private information from being mined.
For example, the program Identity Angel can scour the net and gather thousands of identities by linking names with tidbits gathered scattered throughout other databases.
There are more uses for this information than identify theft. Here is an example from an article in SciAm
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“a banker indicted in Maryland who cross-referenced information in publicly available hospital discharge records with his own client list to see if any of his clients had cancer. If they did, he called in their loans. In a project using data from the state of Illinois, Sweeney’s lab found a way to reidentify patients with Huntington’s disease even after all information about the patients had been deleted from their records. Huntington’s is caused by the repetition of a short sequence of DNA. The more this sequence repeats, the earlier the age of onset. Sweeney’s lab combined those data with hospital discharge records, which included patients’ ages, to accurately link 90 percent of the Huntington’s patients with DNA records on file"
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-li...acy-please
For the right price, anything can be bought. It is true that someone could bribe an employee to give them the registry data, but that is also true of an insurance company, which knows much more about you than this registry does. The government also already has access to these records in the insurance companies. They have but to ask.
Again why would they want the information is the big question. Seriously this Aut-noia is really unfounded. What are they going to do us if we are registered. forbid us from buying bread production and only allowing to eat non-gluten stuff?
Seriously you guys need to *** chill.
In a culture which is obsessed with various therapies for any oddity or imperfection, it is very likely that pressure to treat yourself or your children for autism or to abort an autistic fetus will climb to the point where it may be considered criminal negligence to do otherwise.
In what dimention?
Seriously what are they going to force you to do? The odds anything like force treatment or abortion is happing are pretty far out there.
You want X-men way too much <<
Do we really want to have to rely on the charity of others to protect us if something like this list (Or the next one or the one after that) blocks us from medical coverage, professional occupations, educational institutions, sensative jobs, etc.?
Ah, yes, you reminded me of the other point I forgot to mention- we can honestly say we know at least some of this sort of thing will happen, because it already does to people who disclose their diagnosis ALL THE TIME. Asperger's/Autism can be and has been an excuse used to justify all sorts of offensive discrimination against people, up to and including the diagnosis being used against people in court.
Sad postscript to this: autism has been successfully used as the justification for murder. So what could not be justified?
Personally, I have not yet decided whether or not I want a diagnosis. I know people who have chosen not to be diagnosed because they fear how it could be used against them; I also know people who have chosen to be diagnosed and feel that it helps them more than it hinders them. I'm of two minds about it.
Yes, it would be far better for some one else to have to prove that you are autistic than to have to argue that the diagnosis you personally sought is incorrect.
People on the spectrum are also discriminated against in employment, but employers often make up some BS reason in order to avoid getting in trouble for violating the ADA.
Just require something like X years experience or something else that statistically screens out AS/HFA/LFA. How do you word social skills when it is meant "we don't like AS/HFA/LFA?"
TestForEchoYYZ, are you a RUSH fan? So am I.
I did just a little digging, and I found their website:
http:// health .u tah.g ov/autism/ (link broken for obvious reasons)
Here is just a little tid bit from the website
In addition to counting the numbers of people in Utah who have ASDs and other disabilities, the URADD project will also
• ...Protect the information in the Registry from being released
I am still trying to figure out what information is protected. From what I have read, they seem to be giving the information mainly to public education systems and health care providers. I have found nothing about releasing anything to employers.
I will dig deeper, but it seems you guys are making it seem like a bigger deal than what it really is.
For all Utahans here, I would like to add that I was JOKING. Sorry if I offended.
Don't worry. I definitely agree with you. Utah is definitely one of the worse states to live in. The legislature alone is a testament to the idiocy here. Have you ever heard of Christ Buttars? He's a great example of why Democracy just doesn't work when people are idiots.
When you exclude Larry H. Miller, Christ Buttars, the Uber Conservatives, and basicly all politics of utah, it isn't such a bad place 
. You still might want to know the ways downtown though O____O
Born in the mountains of Bountiful, and raised in the valley of Salt Lake. I have alot of pride in Utah ^_^. I still know all of the downfalls, mind you 
In a culture which is obsessed with various therapies for any oddity or imperfection, it is very likely that pressure to treat yourself or your children for autism or to abort an autistic fetus will climb to the point where it may be considered criminal negligence to do otherwise.
In what dimention?
Seriously what are they going to force you to do? The odds anything like force treatment or abortion is happing are pretty far out there.
<<
Such things do happen http://www.ocregister.com/column/nate-pa...ment-court
The "dead hand of bureaucracy" theory suggests that once a government program like a registry gets going, it will keep expanding. Just wait until the supporters talk about "making sure all children are included in the benefits".