• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Chelation therapy cures child of autism (that was caused by mercury in vaccines)

Again, people that want to claim mercury poisoning as a cause of autism (and by proxy blame vaccines) never can explain why the most common symptoms of Pink Disease never seem to appear in autism, only the uncommon ones that are relatively vague and seem to parallel the disease.

I mean, it's theoretically possible that thimerosal may have some minor, secondary role in a subset of autistic children. But it's by no means proven to the point where I'd be forgoing vaccination or subjecting kids to potentially dangerous chelation therapy.
 
Hmmm. Let's look at this WITHOUT any of the treatment in view.

1) Child is "normal" until about 18 mths old.
2) Child starts "not normal" behaviour according to parents.
3) Parents are TOLD child is "autistic", but they don't say who by.
4) At 3 years old, child resumes "normal" behaviour according to parents.

I'm going to suggest that it is all self-delusion on the part of the parents. No child acts the same as any other growing up, and their individual behaviour patterns change from month to month, even week to week, when they are young. The behaviour these parents describe for an 18 month old sounds perfectly normal to me. Eighteen months is roughly the age when children start to attain an understanding of the wider world around themselves, and they react to this discovery noticeably. This boy simply appears to have been a bit shy, that's all, and now at three years he is coming out of his shell more (by five, he will be a holy terror, as boys will be).

Incidentally, mercury salts do cause serious poisoning, but for pregnant women - Minamata Disease is a cause celebre. Certainly it is being taken seriously, even today, but the drivel being put about by the anti-vax people borders on hysteria.

Example: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/1994/102-6-7/dalgard-full.html
 
Actually, this Generation Rescue site is basically an advertisement for DAN! and doctors that do chelation therapy.

http://www.generationrescue.org

Gems from the website include the "hall of fame", a who's who of autism and anti-vaccine quacks:

http://www.generationrescue.org/hall_fame.html

And of course, this non-partisan "parents only" organization managed to scrape up the money to hire a high-powered PR firm and take out a full page ad in USA Today. But of course, only because they care and not because they're trying to sell chelation therapy to the masses.

http://www.generationrescue.org/mediacenter.html

This is so transparent it's not funny. And I'm convinced something fishy is going on, the more I look at it. After, in the space of two years these parents having a normal child, to an autistic child damaged from vaccines, to having a treated child, to then having the gumption and wherewithall to muster forces to build a fancy organization.

In two years? Me thinks the Handleys are front people for the autism quack doctors who are uniting in order to make some real cash...
 
pgwenthold said:
And what do they find for kids that don't have autism?

Or is that the wrong question to ask?
Click to expand...

Exactly... from http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/hair.html :
In 1983 and 1984, I sent hair samples from two healthy teenagers to 13 of the commercial laboratories [4]. In 1985, I sent paired samples from one of the girls to five more labs. The reported levels of most minerals varied considerably between identical samples sent to the same laboratory, and from laboratory to laboratory. The laboratories also disagreed about what is "normal" or "usual" for many of the minerals, so that a given mineral value might be considered low by some laboratories, normal by others and high by others.

Most of the reports contained computerized interpretations that were voluminous and potentially frightening to patients. The nine labs that included supplement advice in their reports suggested them every time, but the types and amounts varied widely from report to report and from lab to lab. Many of the items recommended were bizarre mixtures of vitamins, minerals, nonessential food substances, enzymes, and extracts of animal organs. One report diagnosed 23 "possible or probable conditions," including atherosclerosis and kidney failure, and recommended 56 supplement doses per day. Literature from most of the laboratories suggested that their reports were useful in managing a wide variety of diseases and supposed nutrient imbalances. I concluded that commercial use of hair analysis in this manner is unscientific, economically wasteful, and probably illegal, and that even if hair analysis were a valuable diagnostic tool, it is doubtful whether the laboratory reports themselves were reliable.
Click to expand...
 
RichardR said:
...Again, the article says:

Three states -- Iowa, Missouri and California -- have banned the preservative, although the California law doesn't take effect until July 2006.

Doesn't that imply they're using it now? Did they stop using thimerosal in vaccines in the US and if so does anybody know when?
Click to expand...

Yes, the CDC does know... thimerosal was removed from most CHILDhood vaccines pretty much in 2001, though it is still in the influenza vaccine. It also means that storage requirements are much more stringent:
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/thimerosal/faqs-thimerosal.htm#4
 
Edited to add this interesting Blog... at the start since the messages is so long: http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/05/antivaccination-rhetoric-running.html

ANOTHER edit to add --- the Autism-Diva has the cost of chelation on her blog (by the way, she is autistic herself):
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2005/05/whats-it-cost-to-chelate.html

AND yet more edits to add... The Autism-Diva discusses her impression of the Handley son, who seemed to be treated with Buttar Cream:
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2005/05/divas-and-amazons-update.html


When the chelation bit was being debated on the listserv In Jan. 2004 I am on for my son's disability I emailed the FDA for information. After a few weird emails about chelation and heart problems from them, and me replying several times I was asking about mercury, autism and CHILDREN... I finally got what seemed to be a human. Here is what the reply was (some identifying items changed):
I am sorry this has been so confusing. We can only tell you the risks that
have been associated with chelation therapy in the products that have been
studied and approved. Chelation therapy is not approved for mercury
poisoning. The adverse effects that have occurred in children while
treating lead poisoning can be found in the package insert. The drug
labeling, or package insert, that accompanies drug products, is the most
complete single source of information on the drug. They are available from
your local pharmacist and also reprinted in the Physician's Desk Reference
(PDR), which can be found in many libraries.

You may also obtain copies of adverse event reports submitted to FDA from
industry, health care providers, and consumers through Freedom of
Information:
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/foiahand.html

Chemet is an orphan drug that may be used for treatment of mercury
intoxication via chelation. Orphan drugs may be approved or may still be
experimental. A drug becomes an "orphan" when it receives orphan designation
from the Office of Orphan Products Development at the FDA. Orphan
designation qualifies the sponsor to receive certain benefits from the
Government in exchange for developing the drug. The drug must then go
through the new drug approval process like any other drug. To date over 1000
orphan products have been designated and over 200 have been approved for
marketing.
http://www.fda.gov/orphan/

Please also be aware that the FDA is empowered by law to review drug
products for safety and effectiveness. Once approved, a drug product may be
prescribed by a licensed physician for any use that, based on the
physician's professional opinion, is deemed to be appropriate. This action
is considered to be part of the practice of medicine. FDA does not regulate
the practice of medicine and cannot comment on, or recommend, a course of
treatment for any individual. The best protection as a consumer/patient is
to educate yourself about any drug that your doctor prescribes.

In addition, you may read about mercury poisoning by using the search engine
at the following site:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/

I hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,
CDER/DrugInfo - RC

-----Original Message-----
From: HCN [mailto:HCN@nospam.com]
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 2:31 PM
To: CDER DRUGINFO
Subject: Re: Chelation Therapy for Children with Developmental Concerns


And yet this still does NOT answer the original question:

> http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimfaq.htm#q23
>
> Would it be possible that this paragraph be expanded upon?:

Which has absolutely NOTHING to do with lead.

There are folks going about pumping their kids with DMSA (and sometimes
DMSO, because it sounds similar) using dubious results from dubious hair
analysis. These folks are getting this dubious advice from this dubious
group:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Autism-Mercury/

Thank you again for the effort,

HCN

----- Original Message -----
From: "CDER DRUGINFO" <DRUGINFO@cder.fda.gov>
To: "'HCN'" <HCN@nospam.com>
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 10:56 AM
Subject: RE: Chelation Therapy for Children with Developmental Concerns


>
> There are various derivatives of EDTA which are FDA approved in the
> pediatric population for treating lead poisoning by means of chelation.
FDA
> has approved these products on the basis of studies which showed evidence
of
> safety and effectiveness. As with any drug product, these products all
have
> associated risks, and should only be used when benefit outweighs risk.
>
> If you would like a copy of the product labeling for these products, which
> includes adverse event information, please respond to this email with your
> mailing address.
>
> Sincerely,
> CDER/DrugInfo - RC
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HCN [mailto:HCN@nospam.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 7:38 PM
> To: CDER DRUGINFO
> Subject: Re: Chelation Therapy for Children with Developmental Concerns
>
>
> Unfortunately, the answer did not address the question. I can assume that
> giving kids EDTA and DMSO is so new that it has not hit the FDA radar
> screen.
>
> Thanks for the effort, I just hope that no kids get injured with this
stuff.
> I shall try my best to steer parents away from putting odd chemicals into
> their kids... but I hope that someone will monitor the Autism-Mercury
Yahoo
> Group (which is where I have been told this practice is preached) and
sends
> out some warnings.
>
> Thanks,
>
> HCN
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "CDER DRUGINFO" <DRUGINFO@cder.fda.gov>
> To: <HCN@nospam.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 9:29 AM
> Subject: RE: Chelation Therapy for Children with Developmental Concerns
>
>
> >
> > Thank you for contacting the Division of Drug Information at the FDA.
> >
> > Chelation agents are approved for treating poisonings with heavy metals.
> > There is no scientific or medical evidence known to FDA that chelation
> > therapy can have any preventative or protective benefits against the
> future
> > development of arteriosclerosis or any other indication. No evidence
has
> > ever been submitted to the FDA demonstrating that Chelation therapy is
> safe
> > and effective for the treatment of arteriosclerosis. Although chelating
> > agents are useful in treating acute lead poisoning, their chronic use,
to
> > combat continued exposure to lead, has not been shown to be effective
and
> > may cause harm.
> >
> > We hope that you find the following links helpful:
> >
> > http://www.nccam.nih.gov/news/2002/chelation/q-and-a.htm#3
> >
> >
>
http://search.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/query?DISAMBIGUATION=true&FUNCTION=sea
> > rch&SERVER2=server2&SERVER1=server1&PARAMETER=chelation
> >
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > CDER/DrugInfo - RC
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: HCN [mailto:HCN@nospam.com]
> > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:34 PM
> > To: octma@cber.fda.gov
> > Subject: Chelation Therapy for Children with Developmental Concerns
> >
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> > I am a participant of a listserv run by ???? . There
have
> > recently been several messages touting the "benefits" of chelation for
> these
> > kids. I find this quite worrysome, but when I raise an alarm I find
only
> > scant data to support my opinion that it is a dangerous and not very
> useful
> > thing to do to kids. Like this:
> >
> > http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimfaq.htm#q23
> >
> > Would it be possible that this paragraph be expanded upon?:
> >
> > "It is also important to point out that the use of chelation therapy for
> > organic mercury poisoning is controversial, with some experts
questioning
> > its benefit. In addition, there are risks associated with chelation
> > therapy."
> >
> > I would like to find out WHAT risks... where, how... etc. If I had
tried
> > oral chelation for my son who has just been diagnosed with hypertrophic
> > cardiomyopathy with obstruction, would I have caused him harm? (actually
> I'm
> > just thankful we found out about it and he is on Antenolol before the
most
> > common way it is diagnosed: sudden cardiac death). I do find
information
> > on www.quackwatch.org --- but the most ardent advocates of chelation
feel
> > that Dr. Barrett is unreliable... though I am baffled by parents who
decry
> > "toxins" in vaccines, yet pump EDTA or whatever into their kids.
> >
> > I also find it disturbing that if I put into www.google.com the search
> words
> > "chelation child" I get all sorts of sites promoting oral chelation for
> > kids!
> >
>
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=chelation+child&btnG=
> > Google+Search
> >
> > Am I being more alarmed than necessary? Regardless of the physical
danger
> > to kids... I also find it scummy that folks are charging parents of
> disabled
> > kids lots of money for this kind of "treatment".
> >
> > Thank you,
> > HCN

> >
> >
>
>r
Click to expand...
 
Oh dear, HC!

:hb:
RichardR said:
Doesn't that imply they're using it now? Did they stop using thimerosal in vaccines in the US and if so does anybody know when?
Click to expand...
What I was really referring to was the specific accusation that it is MMR which is causing autism. But MMR, as a live vaccine, does not and never has contained thiomersal. The accusations regarding a link with autism were predicated on a completely different suggested mechanism.

Rolfe.
 
There is (yet another) ongoing debate about mercury and vaccines in the BMJ responses. These are responses to a review by Dr Fitzpatrick (an eminently sensible pro vaccine advocate who has a child with autism) of David Kirby's book "Evidence of Harm. Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: Medical Controversy"
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/330/7500/1154

As usuual, all the usual suspects (John Stone et al) pour out the woodwork to express their indignation that anyone can question the book's findings.
 
Deetee said:
There is (yet another) ongoing debate about mercury and vaccines in the BMJ responses. These are responses to a review by Dr Fitzpatrick (an eminently sensible pro vaccine advocate who has a child with autism) of David Kirby's book "Evidence of Harm. Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: Medical Controversy"
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/330/7500/1154

As usuual, all the usual suspects (John Stone et al) pour out the woodwork to express their indignation that anyone can question the book's findings.
Click to expand...

Ah, the good David Kirby, who spends an awful lot of time with the SafeMinds folks and presenting to anti-vaccine/autism quack treatment groups, and whose entire book apparently is "the history of autism and thimerosal as told by Lyn Redwood". (right down to the characterization of doctors and government officials)
 
Rolfe, as far as I'm aware, the MMR-autism flap had to do with something like overloading the immune system with three simultaneous vaccinations, and the public concern about it is largely contained in Europe.

Here in the US, the public awareness is largely about the mercury in Thimerosal. I haven't heard anything about non-Thimerosal vaccines and autism except from Europe.

Although the people who are rabid anti-vaxers probably don't realize the difference.
 
sodakboy93 said:
Actually, this Generation Rescue site is basically an advertisement for DAN! and doctors that do chelation therapy.

http://www.generationrescue.org

Gems from the website include the "hall of fame", a who's who of autism and anti-vaccine quacks:

http://www.generationrescue.org/hall_fame.html

And of course, this non-partisan "parents only" organization managed to scrape up the money to hire a high-powered PR firm and take out a full page ad in USA Today. But of course, only because they care and not because they're trying to sell chelation therapy to the masses.

http://www.generationrescue.org/mediacenter.html

This is so transparent it's not funny. And I'm convinced something fishy is going on, the more I look at it. After, in the space of two years these parents having a normal child, to an autistic child damaged from vaccines, to having a treated child, to then having the gumption and wherewithall to muster forces to build a fancy organization.

In two years? Me thinks the Handleys are front people for the autism quack doctors who are uniting in order to make some real cash...
Click to expand...

Strangely I have just had this link thrown at me on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Geni#Geni.27s_talk_.3C.3E_Geni.27s_talk

The whois search throws up an IT company rather than an idividual.
 
"Thrown at you"? What does that mean? I read through that link, but with no context, I have no idea what your point is.
 
The Handleys are now among a small minority of parents -- who, believing that the autism was caused by the mercury in thimerosal, a preservative that was routinely used in vaccines until recently...
Click to expand...

That alone might indicate that we could be winning.
 
CurtC said:
"Thrown at you"? What does that mean? I read through that link, but with no context, I have no idea what your point is.
Click to expand...

The guy is hopeing I'll shut up and go away. He is wrong.
 
This is the problem that I se with the argument,

autism exists, it may be caused by enviromental factors, but it exists, it is not caused by vaccines.

It is like schizophrenia, it occurs in a certain percentage of the population, given certain factors.

It is a pervasive developmental disorder that has no cure and only pallative treatments, in other word you can try to control the effects of autism but not the disorder itself.

There is no sudden increase in aut9ism , it is a differential diagnosis of the developmental disorders , it has always existed, it is just now being differentiated.

The 'chelation' of mercury will do nothing, the child has a PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER, YOU CAN NOT ALTER THE LACK OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRAIN CENTERS INVOLVED IN AUTISM.

You can help a child with autism if you intervene early enough with social interventions, but you can not alter the course of the disorder.

It is a vastly overdiagnosed disorder as well, there are many children who recieve the label, by a practioner who has no bussiness making the diagnosis. I have recentlt met a child who was diagnosed with autism by his pediatrician, even though the child engaged in imaginary play, has socialy reciprocal interactions and imagination.

The problem is one of bad treatment , the chelation will do nothing for the child and potentialy will give the parent false hope of what there child will never be able to become.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom