The Forum Institute
Environmental and nutritional strategies for safe pregnancies and healthy children.
The Forum began as a division of the Northwest Autism Foundation. NWAF had worked with great success to validate the previously novel concept that autism is at least partly the result of environmental factors – and therefore a condition that can in many cases be prevented and/or treated.
How It Began
In 2004, NWAF, in cooperation with Massachusetts General Hospital, raised $1.5 million to establish the Autism Treatment Network (ATN). Initially involving experts in various medical disciplines at six treating hospitals, ATN was the first network of its kind to bring together physicians of diverse specialties in order to bridge gaps in knowledge and thereby improve treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Today ATN remains the premier university ASD research program.
The Forum’s mandate was to broaden the intellectual and scientific base of NWAF’s message by convening think tanks of leading researchers and then publishing results.