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THERAPY OR EDUCATION: A bill would require health insurers to cover behavioral therapy and other treatments for children with autism.

Advocates say the therapies teach social and behavioral skills that help children who have autism function in the mainstream. Opponents, including the state's largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, contend that the interventions are essentially schooling, not medical treatments coverable by health policies. (N&O)

ABOUT THAT LIFE INSURANCE: The N.C. Department of Transportation owes $159,370 to 93 workers who had life insurance premiums deducted even though the employees' policies were cancelled. (N&O)

BRILL TO FTC: North Carolina's top consumer advocate is leaving after a year on the job to become a commissioner with the Federal Trade Commission.

Julie Brill was confirmed late Wednesday by the U.S. Senate. Brill became the senior deputy attorney general and chief of consumer protection and antitrust for the N.C. Department of Justice in February 2009. (N&O)

LAWYER PASSES: Howard Twiggs, a Raleigh lawyer and former legislator who led the American Trial Lawyers Association in battles on Capitol Hill, died Thursday morning after exercising. He was 77. (N&O)

Scott Taylor of Garner came to President Barack Obama's health care town hall worried about the lack of coverage for autism.

Taylor, a Democrat, has two sons. His 7-year-old has autism and his 9-year-old has Asperger's Syndrome. Taylor's health insurance, provided through work, is with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Michael Biesecker reports.

His plan covers some therapy for his sons, but he said it won't pay for speech therapy for his younger son because it was classified as an "educational" issue, not a health one.

Taylor is watching two bills in Congress that would force insurance providers to provide better coverage to families coping with autism. Taylor said he has tried, unsuccessfully, to get Sen. Richard Burr on the phone to talk about the issue.

If he gets to ask a question today, he would ask Obama why autism isn't included in the reform package.

"Nobody is doing anything," he said.

Sen. Janet Cowell is seeking nearly $76 million in state spending.

The Democratic nominee for state treasurer has sponsored one bill and co-sponsored 24 bills seeking appropriations in the upcoming state budget.

Cowell is the primary sponsor on a bill to give $2.1 million to the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences for an environmental education facility at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation.

Among the larger appropriations bills she is cosponsoring: $25 million for a school construction pilot program, $6 million for the Communities in Schools programs on dropout prevention, $5.8 million for the Center for Bioenergy Technologies, $5.6 million for the N.C. Museum of Art, $5.6 million for dropout prevention, $5 million for a strategic plan on biofuels, $5 million for public libraries.

Other large appropriations she is cosponsoring: $4 million for a statewide study on aging, $2 million for the N.C. Arts Council, $1.6 million for a pilot program on dropout prevention in Durham and Vance counties, $1.5 million for a pilot program on adult protective services, $1.4 million for water resource management, $1.2 million for teen pregnancy prevention and $1.2 million for Wake Tech Community College.

She is also cosponsoring bills less than $1 million: Support for caregivers of people with dementia, a statewide literacy program, Kids Voting, treatment of autistic children, services for the developmentally disabled, a legal mediation network, a youth golfing program and the African-American Heritage Commission.

In addition, she is cosponsoring a bill that would give state employees a 7 percent raise.

Update: Her Republican opponent, Rep. Bill Daughtridge, is seeking $19 million in spending.

Bill Graham filed a 2002 lawsuit against a vaccine manufacturer that drew the ire of advocates for tort reform.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate was the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in John and Jane Doe v. Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics.

The 27-page summary of allegations charges that the company distributed a vaccine containing mercury that led to "severe neurodevelopmental disorders" in the couple's two-year-old son. In 2006, it was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Judge James Beaty Jr. for lack of a proper expert witness.

Some parents have blamed mercury-containing thimerosal in vaccines for causing autism, although the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the "weight of scientific evidence" indicates that vaccines are not associated with the disorder.

Lawsuits over vaccines and autism have been criticized by conservative groups calling for tort reform.

"When you look at this Ortho-Doe case, it's precisely the junk science, junk claim that those of us in tort reform have opposed and harshly criticized," said James Copland, director for the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute.

But Graham cautioned against making assumptions about the lawsuit.

"We didn't even say the word autism in the complaint," he told Dome. "To say that it had any relationship to autism ... it was never an allegation in the complaint."

Judge Beaty, however, did not shy away from the word, using "autism" or "autistic" 64 times in his 25-page opinion about the vaccine, called RhoGAM.

"Plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude the thimerosal in RhoGAM caused Minor Child Doe's autism," he wrote.

Graham said that he filed a number of subsequent cases regarding the same type of mercury poisoning without mention of autism. One of those plaintiffs, Laura Bono, co-founded the National Autism Association.