I wonder if even if we can't explain any uninterested human beings why chelation isn't any functioning treatment medically, we might point out how dubious the treatment is by showing its history.
I don't know much about its history. I know according to
http://www.chelationwatch.com and
this article (which are biased against chelation by the way) that chelation is a standard procedure of certain levels of heavy metal poisoning like lead poisoning and has been that for many, many years before Andrew Wakefield suggested that vaccines cause autism in 1998.
Chelation has not only been claimed to be an effective treatment of autism, but also a heart disease called cardiovascular disease (
wikilink), but according to chelation watch and that article:
Chelation therapists have claimed that this form of treatment opens the narrowed arteries that supply blood to the heart and legs. No studies have substantiated this claim and the proponents of chelation treatments have carried out no valid trials to prove them.
Maybe chelation as an alternative treatment actually could have had a very similar way of marketting itself as other very obviously fake alternative treatments, like the marketting seen on this foot detox site.
1. Increased Circulation
2. Increased Sex Drive
3. Increased Energy
4. Decreased Allergy symptoms
That foot detox page look almost identical to an example of alternative medicine in my schoolbook which is MEANT to look dubious.
...
Anyway, exactly when was chelation first suggested to be an effective treatment of autism and how has chelation as an alternative autism treatment developed since then?
I am also very interested in the history of chelation before 1998.
This seems to be a fairly comprehensive history of chelation therapy:-
http://www.relfe.com/IDetoxamin/history_...erapy.html
At least it told a story of how it was invented in Germany and patented in the US during the Second World War.
Is it just me or does the page claim that it treats cardiovascular disease?
... never liked mayonnaise.
Ah, through google search I found the difference between oral and intravenous chelation, lol!
Oral - through the mouth
Intravenous - through syringe or something.
From:
http://www.oralchelation.com/history/index.html
One of the pioneers in this practice was my friend Dr. Ray Evers. He won a great court battle many years ago -- fighting the government and various medical boards. The government didn't want to see intravenous chelation therapy being done -- it cuts into the profits of the drug companies. So, they constantly attacked any doctor who did it. Many courageous doctors did it, anyway, and many of them lost their licenses. Dr. Evers realized that when a person had "lead poisoning" the standardly-accepted treatment was intravenous treatment with EDTA. In other words, the same exact substance and the same exact procedure were used to treat lead poisoning as was being used to improve blood circulation.
It would be nice to know more about such earlier court cases.
It seems that we have some rather dubious hits by google however.
OK, this site is ALSO positive to chelation as a therapy for cardiovascular disease, but at least it tell how it first was claimed to be an effective treatment of it:
http://www.cardiorenew.com/history.php
EDTA Chelation for Lead Poisoning
In the 1950's EDTA was tried with equal success in curing people with lead poisoning who were working in a battery plant and the U.S. Navy used it on people who had acquired lead poisoning in repainting old ships. In both of these applications, not only did EDTA eliminate the poisoning, but also the patients were relieved of arteriosclerosis, chest pains, arthritis, memory loss, inability to concentrate, etc. Hearing of these cures, heart specialists at Wayne State University used EDTA on a group of patients that were believed to have incurable conditions - even the most seriously ill of the group were restored to near normalcy. From the 1950's on, many doctors continued, with conference based on their experience, to utilize chelation therapy in a wide variety of medical applications with great success.
Published articles regarding successful treatment of arteriosclerosis with EDTA and Chelation began appearing in medical journals in 1955, and many more since then. In 1973, the American Academy of Medical Preventics was formed to educate physician and promote the utilization of EDTA chelation therapy in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. This organization was renamed the American Academy of the Advancement of Medicine in 1986. In 1983, the formation of the American Board of Chelation Therapy was formed to set parameters for the education and testing of physicians for competence in the administration of EDTA chelation.
This could also be interesting:
Many diabetics and macular degeneration patients believe using chelation helps increase peripheral circulation. Chelation is also frequently used and found beneficial in the treatment of osteoarthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, organic poisoning, and heavy metal reduction.
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_po...PN=1&TPN=2
If anyone could provide the website for any warning from the FDA about chelation specific to ASD/ADHD, I'd appreciate it. I looked for quite a while and unfortunately their website seems to keep every scrap of any junk anyone ever submitted so I got nowhere doing keyword searches. While we did do the testing (surprise surprise they found all sorts of metals and things, but gee my pediatrician asks why did they have to send the specimens to a place in France?), I am very highly suspicious of all of this. Theres a few thousand people (even with Dr. in front of their names) who will not hesitate to take advantage of desperate caring parents if it can mean a dollar for them. So, does anyone have a link to any FDA or other government source for warnings about DAN/chelation?
This is the third time I hear that the tests are sent to France.
Why France?
http://www.labbio.net/pages/index_vh_eng.htm
Laboratoire Philippe Auguste
I wonder if this is the french lab tests for heavy-metals are taken to. I found the lab mentioned in this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez...s=17885929
... which was in the references in this:
http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/pdfs/au...gazine.pdf
... thing about the mercury theory.
...
We now have a direct link between a lab that seem to suggest that chelation is an effective treatment of cardiovascualar disease and the research around the mercury theory, but I'm not sure if this is one of the main places where the usual heavy metal tests are taken to.
Is there a slight possibility that many of the results of heavy-metal testings are false? And that it would be usefull with a second opinion from an unrelated heavy-metal test for any parent considering chelation?
Is it true that many autistic people can't excrete heavy metals? Just that bit about the mercury theory seem to be falsifyable. So shouldn't a separate study be able to determinate whether or not this is true? I guess it might already have been proven true or false by seperate studies but I haven't heard of it yet.
I think there's enough evidence against chelation out there, so it's only the real nutters still doing it.
0.o
But they are so many and convincing!
Really, alot of parents are still doing it because they hear of all the good results from others who have done it. It is difficult to determine exactly why those few parents who claim they see improvements in behavior after chelation say these things. Some say placebo effect, some say that the children improve in behavior like any other autistic child that age and others say that there actually are some very few who genuinily do benefit from chelation because of heavy metal poisoning.
Well, the mercury theory adjust itself to new acknowledged facts.
First it was: It isn't genes that cause autism, it's mercury from vaccines
After it was accepted that it was generally genetic:
Autism is caused when the kids are genetically exposable to heavy metal poisoning from vaccines.
Now that it is accepted that vaccines doesn't cause autism as Denmark, Canada and Japan did not get any lower diagnosis rate after all thimerosal was removed from their vaccines in 1990-1992 it is:
They are exposed by mercury from everywhere, not just in vaccines.
I'm discussing with someone here:
http://www.topix.net/health/autism/2007/...ays-expert
As Ivar with Dogen3, probably I say some stupid stuff but at least I get a chance to learn abit about the whole thing.
When I showed it at the AFF chat it was at least not me they laughed of, but Dogen3 for saying Mercury Theory being hard science and:
Chelation is the number one rated autism treatment in at least 2 studies. Not the number one rated "alternative" treatment... the number one treatment overall including prescription medications, behavioral/education therapies and "alternative" treatments.
I've heard that DAN! people often want to give the impression that chelation and mercury theory being commonly acknowledged within the medical community, I am still not sure what exactly to say about this thing:
Andrew Wakefield's theories about mercury causing autism is just one in a hundred of theories about what causes autism. The mercury theory is rejected by mainstream medical community.
If by mainstreem you mean the CDC et al, then yes. By rank & file physicians... not so much. The biochemistry community, the immunology community, the cellular biology community have a different take. It is not unusual for hard science to be well ahead of mainstream medicine. It is, in fact, quite the norm.
... I've actually used about an hour translating it into norwegian by the way.
Ok, now I'm going into something that is especially interesting for me. NeuroZym and Dr. Reichelt who is very popular autism nutritionalist in Norway seem to be frequently mentioned in the same places as DAN! is mentioned.
Example given:
http://www.nutrition4health.org/nohanews...etings.htm
Dr. Reichelt seem to be just one in many who participate in the DAN! conference and claims he (as all the others) know how to help autistics.
- DAN! er en løs organisasjon som består av ildsjeler. Reichelt er selvsagt medlem. Senteret for organisasjonen ligger i Autism Research Institute i San Diego og ledes av Bernard Rimland, som mer eller mindre egenhendig feide av banen de gamle teoriene om at autisme skyldtes følelseskalde mødre, forteller Jørgen.
This means Reichelt is a DAN! member...