Autism Speaks Partners with Efferent Media on Video to Raise Awareness For 2015 Long Island Autism Speaks Walk

The Long Island Chapter of Autism Speaks has partnered with Efferent Media, a Long Island SEO company, on a video designed to raise greater awareness about autism.

The collaborative video also draws focus to the MSSNG Project, the non-profit organization’s new open-source research endeavor with Google, and brings attention to the upcoming Long Island Walk Now for Autism Speaks on Sunday, October 4, at Jones Beach Field 5.

Each year the walk provides an opportunity to honor someone with autism, and the money it raises each year goes to several distinct purposes:

• Joining together the autism community as one strong voice to urge the government and private sector to take action, such as the passing of the ABLE Act in December 2014.
• Raising public awareness about autism and its effects on individuals, families and society.
• Bringing hope to all those impacted by autism, which affects one in 68 American children, according to March 2014 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research.
• Funding biomedical research, such as the MSSNG Project, into the causes, prevention, treatments and effective solutions for autism.

“This video is a great initiative to help promote Autism Speaks’ partnership with Google to map the genes of 10,000 people diagnosed with autism. Google will compile this information and cross-reference the genes of all 10,000 people - keeping in mind each person has more than 3.1 billion genes - to find any and all mutations and commonalities of abnormalities,” said John Beyer, chairman of Autism Speaks on Long Island and CEO of Men on the Move.

“Google and Autism Speaks will make the results of this project open source to universities, researchers and, most importantly, pharmaceutical companies, to explore new treatments and modalities for people with autism,” Beyer added. “Special thanks to Joe Garraffo, president of Efferent Media, for producing this video to promote the MSSNG project and the 2015 Long Island Autism Speaks Walk.”

“Thanks to the creation of our new video department, we were able create a video that really gets to the heart of what Autism Speaks does, one that we were honored and proud to create for such a great cause,” commented Garraffo.

The Lanese family is among those affected by autism, raising two sons impacted by the disorder. The family had the chance to tell its story in the video.

“We are very proud to be a part of this project. This has been a great opportunity to share families’ personal stories and highlight Autism Speaks’ increasing impact here on Long Island,” said Kathleen Lanese, chairman of Light It up Blue for World Autism Awareness Day on April 2.

View the video created by Efferent Media for Autism Speaks on Long Island below.