Children to hold fundraiser for autism, diabetes

Ten of thousands of schoolchildren will knock on doors around the country on Tuesday to collect money in a joint campaign for ALUT, the Society for Autistic Children, and the JDRF, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. ALUT director Margalit Tirosh said that while treatment of autistic children has improved over the years, the higher number of diagnoses has put a burden on treatment facilities for all ages of patients around the country. Donations of NIS 5 can be made anytime by sending an SMS message to number 2525 with the number 5 as text. The JDRF says there are 10,000 Israeli children with Type I diabetes, the sort that is an autoimmune disease and destroys the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells at a young age. The organization's aim is to find a cure for the disease, which requires sufferers to test their blood and take insulin shots several times a day.