Couldn't see the second one, is it anywhere else?
Amy wrote:
Couldn't see the second one, is it anywhere else?
I couldn't see it either, I think you probably have to register to see it.
But I've seen the first link though. And was I in for a surprise, I did not know that the parents could be so hardheaded like that. I mean look its obvious that there is no link between autism and mercury poisoning. Brainless fools, the lot of them.
I've come across parents who think they know it all and can't be told.
With some or maybe a majority, they are so desperate they will believe anything. They listen to whoever is peddling the latest "treatment" or "cure" because they want their child to be "normal". It is some sort of reflection upon them if they have a child or children with a disability (at least in their mind, it is).
I must be in the minority, but if I were told about a treatment, I would question it a lot. Then again, maybe it is because I know that doctors aren't infallible beings.
Here's the second article. Don't know why the link didn't work. Maybe, like you say, you have to be registered.... ?
June 25, 2005
Experts Reject Some Therapies
By GARDINER HARRIS and ANAHAD O'CONNOR
Practitioners are using nutritional supplements, sauna baths and powerful "detoxification" drugs to treat autism in the belief that it is caused by thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that contains mercury. But health experts say such therapies are not effective and can be harmful.
Dr. Susan Swedo of the National Institutes of Mental Health said the use of drugs to remove metals from the body, called chelation, could cause liver and kidney damage and other problems.
It "isn't responsible to prescribe" chelation for autism, Dr. Swedo said.
Chelation is approved by federal drug regulators only after blood tests confirm acute heavy-metal poisoning. Yet some doctors say they skip the tests for autistic children.
"We try not to waste people's money on tests," said Dr. John Kucera, a physician in private practice in Colorado Springs. "Some are of the opinion that everyone deserves a chance at chelation therapy whether they show the signs or not."
One of the first to advocate treating autism with chelation and other therapies was Dr. Stephen Edelson of Atlanta.
Dr. Edelson said in an interview that he stopped practicing medicine last year after the state medical board censured him for abusing prescription drugs and parents filed lawsuits contending that their children had regressed under his care.
Dr. Edelson said he placed children in 160-degree saunas as part of their treatment. Some children fought to get out of the sauna and kicked out its window, an assistant said in a sworn statement.
The doctor said he also used chelation and prescribed 60 to 70 supplements a day, causing some children to vomit. Children had so much blood taken for tests - often 20 vials in a sitting - that one child passed out, a parent claimed in a lawsuit.
But many parents are desperate. Dr. Jim Laidler, an anesthesiologist in Portland, Ore., said that after he learned that his two sons had autism, "if someone had e-mailed me that powdered rhino horn worked, I would have gone off on safari."
Dr. Laidler said he and his wife decided to try a restricted diet, nutritional supplements and chelation.
But he said that his wife secretly stopped the treatments and waited to see if he noticed a difference. He did not. The children's behavior worsened and improved independent of the therapies.
Dr. Laidler now thinks that most such therapies are harmful.
"These parents are addicted to hope," he said. "They need it to survive, and there are people who are willing to sell it to them."
Thank God someone is saying this loudly in the media!
These treatments are such cr@p!
These treatments are such cr@p!
You said it. It's a good thing none of them were tried on me. Because, if they were, I might not even be here right now.