Orac has a long and incredibly worrying post up that reveals that Rashid Buttar, chelationist supreme, has taken a very worrying step down the road to quackery.
A few months ago, a 5 year old autistic boy died undergoing chelation therapy. Defenders of chelation at the time pointed out that IV EDTA was not a recognised treatment for autism chelationists.
However, that form of chelation therapy is exactly the sort of therapy that Rashid Buttar is apparently now implementing as part of a new protocol.
Why? Defenders of Rashid Buttar claim that he promotes his own TD DMPS because its safe – a lot of us think its safe because it doesn’t do anything. So why would he switch from a chelator specifically marketed and lauded as ‘safe’ to one that is associated with the death of a child?
I find Rashid Buttars role in the whole damn thing puzzling – he claimed he didn’t have time to submit his TD DMPS for independent review as he wanted to spend his time helping kids. Thats a bizarre bit of logic when you consider that if he _did_ submit TD DMPS for peer review and it was successful (ahem) then he would be in a position to reach a hundred, no a _thousand_ times as many kids. And now this. A bizarre and frightening step backwards to using a technique that is outdated amongst legitimate chelators – in the field of autism its notoriety is ensured with the death of a small autistic boy.
And its not only IV EDTA – apparently this new protocol utilises Ozone…..why? There’s no science that suggests this is a good idea and Orac’s piece has a frightening description of what Ozone can do and how it seems ‘Dr’ Buttar is overriding known safe doses – something of an irony considering his most vocal supporters claim that its an overdose of a known safety limit thats caused what he claims to be treating.
Most worryingly of all, it seems that Buttar is _already_ using these methods. Last time a lot of us expressed unease and worry about the end result of chelation for autistic children. It looks like thats what we’re reduced to doing again. I’m sure his defenders will find some way to rationalise it but I’m left simply hoping Orac’s information is wrong and that even Dr Buttar wouldn’t be so foolhardy. Of course, simply hoping didn’t do a whole lot of good last time, did it?
Left Brain Right Brain 
If this is all true, then the thimerosal-autism proponents would be well served to distance themselves from Dr. Buttar. Association with quackery kills any shred of credibility they might be able to muster within the legitimate scientific or medical community.
From JB’s latest blog entry, “Autism is nothing more than mercury poisoning.”
The guy just doesn’t budge an inch. I wanna watch what happens with his loyalty to Buttar.
In their minds it’s got to bother them that kids are getting treated with the secretin, EDTA, DMPS, homeopathic chelation, RNA drops, HBOT, or the sauna protocols.
Could the kids who respond be just developing over time?
*checks watch
BC: “Could the kids who respond be just developing over time?”
I would say so, yes.
Now fifty million tons of shit are gonna drop on me.
Association with quackery kills any shred of credibility they might be able to muster within the legitimate scientific or medical community.
Well, frankly, I hope that happens, and I hope it happens before any more children die from the treatment.
Could the kids who respond be just developing over time?
Well, that’s the most logical explanation, but the Mecurites won’t believe it.
bonni: “Well, frankly, I hope that happens, and I hope it happens before any more children die from the treatment.”
Sadly, it won’t.
It’s basically their religion. And religion is very hard to break at the level of belief to which they believe in all that shit.
So, Rashid has moved on to using IV EDTA + Ozone; while his main (or should it be “erstwhile”? ) acolyte is busily promoting B12/’MeB12 nasal spray’. It does make one pause.
It’s basically their religion. And religion is very hard to break at the level of belief to which they believe in all that shit.
Oh, I know. The whole thing has an awful lot of signs that make it highly cultlike (and not all cults are religious, of course).
burntcherry: “It does make one pause.”
Sadly, not them.
EDTA is used for lead toxicity. I believe Buttar may be using EDTA to remove lead BEFORE going after the mercury with DMPS. I’ve heard it said that high lead levels complicate the removal of mercury.
That said, i’ve noticed my daughter wasn’t excreting much lead when we had her ONLY on td-dmps. Lead didn’t start coming out until we added td-Glutathione. Using the two together, we noticed a rapid rise in the rate of excretion for BOTH metals.
I’m confused by the ND’s assertion that DMPS in transdermal form ISN’T transdermal… because if it DIDN’T penetrate the skin… there would be no explanation for my daughter’s fecal and hair metal levels corresponding so CLOSELY with changes in the doses of these lotions we administer.
I praise the day I met Dr. Buttar…because it was after I interviewed him for our website that I decided to investigate whether TD-DMPS was appropriate for my daughter.
It was.
Now tell me… why are all of you so THREATENED by us treating our children for heavy metal toxicity? Since they ARE poisoned by toxic levels of heavy metals… and since we’re using the appropriate treatments for this… and noticing marked improvements in our children’s general health and cognitive abilities… what’s the problem, people?
Erik
bonni: “The whole thing has an awful lot of signs that make it highly cultlike …”
See what I mean?
Erik said, “I’m confused by the ND’s assertion that DMPS in transdermal form ISN’T transdermal… because if it DIDN’T penetrate the skin… there would be no explanation for my daughter’s fecal and hair metal levels corresponding so CLOSELY with changes in the doses of these lotions we administer.”
Have you had the lotion tested for heavy metal contamination? Have you ruled out the possiblity that uncontaminated lotion could bind metals on the skin and drag (homopathically rigorous term right there) them into the system (ibid)?
Asking clueless questions is fun. It’s part of the I’m-gonna-ask-you-to-disprove-the-thing-that-hasn’t-been-proven-yet fun.
Erik said, “Now tell me… why are all of you so THREATENED by us treating our children for heavy metal toxicity?”
Why would so many of the same people be tackling silly chiropractic care, new age medicine, etc? Quackbusting is something to do. However, I bet that there would be a few more people who’d join Buttar’s Army if only the science was sound. Threatened by your actions? Most people are simply threatened by aggressive harrassment.
Eric Nastiel said: “EDTA is used for lead toxicity. I believe Buttar may be using EDTA to remove lead BEFORE going after the mercury with DMPS. I’ve heard it said that high lead levels complicate the removal of mercury.”
Where does this high lead content come from? Checking the information here: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/leadpoisoning.html … the possibilities include kids eating paint chips from homes older than 1978, playing in dirt contaminated with car exhaust from when gasoline was leaded, dust (like when lead came is sanded in the creation of leaded glass windows), drinking water from older pipes with high lead , consuming food served in dishes with lead contaminated glazes and living near industries with high lead output. That is a list of lots of sources… but which ones are your kids _really_ exposed to?
From the the site above is http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/lead/test.html … it seems to indicate a _blood_ test is needed to determine lead levels.
The Mayo Clinic link shows what the levels need to be to start chelation (with EDTA)… but with one note: It does _not_ reverse the damage already done.
We’ve learned with one dead child this year that if the blood does NOT have certain levels of lead in it, the EDTA will attach to the blood calcium instead. The loss of blood calcium causes horrible problems, including cardiac arrest. A parent had better be very very sure that their child has _real_ heavy metal poisoning before allowing EDTA to be pumped into their body.
Handwaving and claiming “our kids have lead poisoning along with mercury poisoning” is just an exercise of chasing phantoms.
Now tell me… why are all of you so THREATENED by us treating our children for heavy metal toxicity?
I’m not. You can throw your money away on anything you damn well please as far as I’m concerned. So long as you still have more to provide the child with appropriate therapies (ABA/speech therapy/occupational therapy/etc), I couldn’t care less what you put on your child’s skin.
What DOES alarm me is the idea of more children – even one more child – dying due to medically inadvisable treatment like IV chelation. I DO object to parents and so-called doctors putting children at risk, because I don’t happen to believe that they’re “better dead than autistic”.
So long as the treatments you give your child don’t harm him/her and you’re not diverting funds that could be spent on more conventional (and proven) therapies, it’s absolutely no skin of my nose.
I bet that there would be a few more people who’d join Buttar’s Army if only the science was sound.
If anyone could show me REAL, peer-reviewed, medical evidence that it works, you bet your butt I’d be smearing that stuff all over my kid! But until someone can show me bona fide evidence that this 1) works 2) is not harmful and 3) damaged brain cells can miraculously grow back in the face of all evidence that this is more or less impossible, I”m not going to fall for it.
Faith is a fine thing when it comes to religion, but it can be dangerous and stupid when applied to matters best left to scientific methods.
Threatened? Why are the North Dakotan’s threatened? Oh, there’s a city in North Dakota called “Lead” or is that in South Dakota? http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Lead,+SD
It’s so sad that you’ve been bamboozled by those crummy labs, Eric. And you look great in a hula skirt. How’s about you send your samples to a real lab next time, just for grins, that is, a local hospital lab, not “Doctor’s Data.”
If not, why not?
HN: “We’ve learned with one dead child this year that if the blood does NOT have certain levels of lead in it, the EDTA will attach to the blood calcium instead. The loss of blood calcium causes horrible problems, including cardiac arrest. A parent had better be very very sure that their child has real heavy metal poisoning before allowing EDTA to be pumped into their body.”
It would seem that one of the reasons why this sort of “therapy” has flourished in the US but not in the UK might be the approach to health-care funding that is used there… a market forces approach to health-care is likely to give rise to situation in which get-rich-quick types in medicine will act unethically enough to commit fraudulent acts of diagnosis in order to get insurance companies to pay for treatments which have been known to be invalid. The way in which medicine is regulated and funded in the UK would seem to mean that chelation for anything other than serious lead poisoning would never be considered. Mind you, having said that, I’m not entirely sure that the NHS Trusts are anything less than a next-step along the way to local HMOs, to be honest.
Even so, the economic climate in health-care in the US – whilst not being to blame for these practitioners’ behaviour (that is their own matter between them and what little conscience any of them seems to have) – does certainly seem to provide a backdrop against which such activity can flourish unchecked.
So I’m left wondering why no one has analysed PM autistic brain tissue for mercury levels. I mean we know it’s detectable at harmful levels or even post-vaccine levels so why not run some actual tissue samples? With Sallie Bernard at the helm of CAN surely they can pry a few samples away from AGRE. Just run them and compare levels with controls. Would that satisfy the mercury brigade? Obviously there will be mercury in both sets but if it’s substantially higher in the ASD group that should settle the isue right? What if it’s the same or even lower in the ASD group? Will we have to invent some new hypothesis involving genetic susceptibility, non-excretors, or hit-and-run damage? Will it even be published?
What do you say JB? You can fund it and Erik can bring along his camcorder and document the whole project. Maybe Geraldo Rivera can get involved, see what’s locked up inside that SAFE MIND
Erik – do you believe that IV EDTA is an appropriate and safe method of chelation?
Kev,
At the risk of sounding glib, IV-EDTA can be “an appropriate and safe method of chelation” if it is done appropriately and safely. I have tried not to discuss the Nadama tragedy because not enough information has been made public yet, but if one believes what one hears, appropriate protocols were not followed in that case.
Lead is an issue for many kids on the spectrum, and the means of acquiring that lead is irrelevant. Whether, as Erik says, ingested lead is impairing the ability to excrete mercury, or whether lead becomes a greater problem because of the damage done to the immune system by mercury, is likewise irrelevant to a parent. (Both hypotheses have been put forth.) The fact is that, at least anecdotally, we see greater problems in kids whose test results show lead problems, and greater improvement when the lead comes out.
DMSA is one FDA-approved means of chelating the lead; EDTA is likewise FDA-approved and accepted. The decision as to which chelator is more appropriate — like the decision to chelate at all — must be made by the treating physician and the parents based on the individual circumstances of a particular patient.
If lead was a _real_ issue with autistic kids then pediatricians would be ordering blood tests to check for lead (at a _local_ hospital lab, not some mail-order place which may have quality control issues), and authorizing chelation in real clinics. The UK’s NHS service would have had no problem chelating for real lead poisoning.
According to this, http://www.aafp.org/afp/20021101/1667.html , lead poisoning can be a _one_ of many causes for autism, with this quote: “Lead screening and metabolic testing should be considered if there is a history of lethargy, cyclic vomiting, early seizures, dysmorphic features, or mental retardation. ”
If was an extremely common reason, then it would have been all over Pubmed… as it stands, using the search words “lead poisoning autism” brings up one page of cites. Some of them refer to case studies where a severely austistic woman was found to have lead poisoning from an unusual source, and older studies where lead poisoning is investigated as a cause for autism (older, talking about serious lead poisoning… with real tests, not guessing).
Remember… with real lead poisoning the chelation is done to stop _further_ neurological damage, it does NOT repair the damage that has already occured.
More information is here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lead-poisoning/FL00068
Wade Rankin said, “Lead is an issue for many kids on the spectrum, and the means of acquiring that lead is irrelevant.”
NO! It is _very_ important to know where the lead came from, because you want to stop the child from ingesting anymore. If you suspect your child has lead poisoning, read the Mayo Clinic information and make sure you have removed access to all the lead sources your child may have contact with!
HN said “It is very important to know where the lead came from, because you want to stop the child from ingesting anymore. If you suspect your child has lead poisoning, read the Mayo Clinic information and make sure you have removed access to all the lead sources your child may have contact with!”
That point is well-taken, and I certainly can’t argue with your logic. But knowing the source is irrelevant in determining whether to chelate a non-excreting child with verifiable quantities of lead. That is a decision that cannot be made in the abstract on a blog, but can only be made by a doctor and parents exercising responsible discretion (i.e., taking into account all symptoms and test results and weighing the pros and cons of all available treatment options).
Kev said “Erik – do you believe that IV EDTA is an appropriate and safe method of chelation?”
I’m not a physician, but as I have heard, it is appropriate for lead poisoning/toxicity. However, the boy who died received an IV-PUSH, which Rashid Buttar called “Idiotic.” It is far too aggressive for someone his age/size, apparently.
Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t answer other people’s questions, huh?
If an austic child has high levels of heavy metals in their system, they’re heavy-metal poisoned and must be chelated.
If an autistic child has low levels of heavy metals in their system, they’re “non-excretors” and need to be chelated.
Forgive me if this is confusing the bejeezus out of me and/or making me think that these “doctors” will diagnose just about anyone they see with heavy metal toxicity.
Is there a scenario where an autistic child who goes to one of these doctors does NOT get diagnosed with heavy metal toxicity, gluten sensitivity, allergies, et al.?
One of the old studies on heavy metals and autism showed that autistic kids had the highest levels of lithium, pointing, logically to lithium being the main cause of autism. Right.
Wade Rankin, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Just because the FDA approves of EDTA as a chelator doesn’t mean that it’s right for chelation. It can chelate but it’s not that effective. If you read the real toxicology literature you will see that there are reasons for giving DMPS orally, for instance.
Also, in real life, toxicologist don’t do this purely INSANE long term chelation.
Real heavy metal poisoning is dealt with in a hospital, they monitor the person so that he doesn’t end up dead, like Abubakar. That’s what I would want if I needed to be chelated. For crying out loud, it’s moving all kinds of metals and minerals around, it’s potentially dangerous.
Buttar is not a real toxicologist.
He’s not board certified (his “board” isn’t recognized), not that anyone cares about that, because the man is GOD and that’s what matters.
The thing that gets me, is that you Wade Rankin, could afford to get the best treatment for your child. If you thought he was heavy metal poisoned, really, you could take him to a real toxicologist and get top line treatment.
———————
Risher and Amerler, /Mercury Exposure: Evaluation and Intervention The Inappropriate Use of Chelating Agents in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Putative Mercury Poisoning/
July 2005
Another more recent use of chelation is as a provocative mercury ‘‘challenge’’ (Frumpkin et al., 2001). In this procedure, the patient is administered a single dose (oral or parenteral, depending on the particular agent used) of the chelating chemical and sent home to collect urine for a 24-h period. Often, no pre-chelation urine sample is collected and analyzed for mercury, making a comparison of the person’s actual (pre-chelation) urine mercury level with population background levels impossible. Each year, ATSDR receives dozens of calls from individuals who have been chelated (challenged) with DMPS or DMSA prior to collection of any urine samples, and subsequently been diagnosed as having mercury poisoning. The sole basis of these diagnoses was laboratory reports that indicated that the individual had been determined to have toxic levels of mercury, based solely upon comparison of post-chelation mercury values with historical (typically pre-chelation) values.
Without exception these individuals have been advised to undergo additional chelation.
Some physicians have also looked to mercury as a possible cause of undiagnosed health problems and subsequent chelation therapy as a treatment for those problems. As a result, the use of chelation has expanded in recent years to include the treatment of mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic patients with no documented history of mercury exposure (McKay et al., 2003), and it is becoming increasingly, and unfortunately, common for practitioners to make a diagnosis of mercury intoxication and begin treatment without carrying out an adequate clinical workup (McKay et al., 2003).
A number of chelating agents are currently either in practical use or under investigation for treating mercury poisoning (Tables 2–5). The available chelators differ in their efficacy for various forms of mercury, route of administration, side effects, and route of excretion. Depending on the specific type of mercury and the health status of the patient, different chelators …
EDTA; (Versene) calcium disodium versenate; edetate calcium disodium
Possible side effects: i.m. injection site pain; fever; chills; malaise; fatigue; myalgia; arthralgia; tremors; tingling; headache; numbness; hypotension; cardiac rhythm irregularities; acute proximal tubular necrosis; glycosuria; proteinuria; hematuria; cheilosis; nausea; vomiting; anorexia; anemia; excessive thirst; mild increases in SGOT and SGPT (common); sneezing; nasal congestion; lacrimation; rash; zinc deficiency; hypercalcemia; lesions similar to Vitamin B6 deficiency
Essential minerals chelated: Cu, Fe, Zn, Mg, Ca (to a lesser extent)
Route of excretion: Primarily urine
——-
Oh, look, EDTA is good for getting rid of copper, iron, zinc, magnesium and calcium…
———–
I wish you and your friends, and people like Craig Westover, would stop influencing parents to chelate their kids when you yourselves have no idea of what you are discussing. You pass around third-rate, third-hand knowledge and if you think that you couldn’t contribute to another child’s death you are wrong.
Where is your conscience in this?
I’m really appalled at your behavior, not that you should care what I think of you, but I really must comment. I hope you will all stop playing doctor before another child is killed.
—————————
more from the journal article:
———–
…The recent increase in the use of chelation, without first establishing the need for such therapy, raises concern. The authors of this paper have personally encountered numerous instances in both clinical and consultational settings in which chelation has been recommended by the attending physician or even requested directly by the patient.
———
He then describes a mom who thought her 6 year old was made autistic entirely by the action of thimerosal. Never mind that there’s no proof that that could ever happen.
Small correction to cloneg3. AGRE is a DNA collection.
The ATP (autism tissue program) is the brain bank.
But the clone’s point is excellent.
Why isn’t anyone looking for mercury in the brains of autistics? why? They aren’t finding damage there that looks like mercury damage for one thing.
No, the wealthy mercury parents want to spit into the wind in such a way that leaves their own DNA far above questioning. God forbid they might be found out to be less than stellar breeding stock.
Miranda Reitz :
Small correction to cloneg3. AGRE is a DNA collection.
The ATP (autism tissue program) is the brain bank.
Thanks very much Miranda. Always happy to learn.
->”Wade Rankin, you have no idea what you are talking about.”
You are certainly not the first person to tell me that, and I doubt you will be the last. I do not claim to have a lot of answers, but I am reasonably capable of understanding basic science.
->”The thing that gets me, is that you Wade Rankin, could afford to get the best treatment for your child. If you thought he was heavy metal poisoned, really, you could take him to a real toxicologist and get top line treatment.”
Although you are not crystal clear on that point, I think you are trying to make the laughable assertion that because I practice law I must be wealthy. You must believe every stereotype you have ever read. I assure you, I am far from rich. Moreover, I never comment on the particulars of my son’s treatment publicly, so I think you are being quite presumptuous in assuming what treatment he is getting from whom. Be that as it may, my son is not a patient of Dr. Buttar, I have never met Dr. Buttar, and I have no opinion one way or the other about Dr. Buttar. I know that he is reviled by many and adored by many. I seem to be alone in my neutrality about the man. The only thing I was commenting on was the efficacy of IV-EDTA.
-> “I wish you and your friends, and people like Craig Westover, would stop influencing parents to chelate their kids when you yourselves have no idea of what you are discussing.”
Ms. Clark. You must have me confused with somebody else. I do not state that everyone should get their children chelated. I believe that every parent should explore and weigh their options on an individual basis. Autism is far too complex a situation for a one-size-fits-all response.
Mr. Rankin,
I really think that you could probably afford to take your child to get a real toxicology work up… or maybe you couldn’t because a real toxicologist wouldn’t let you in the front door because he would know that your child hasn’t been heavy metal poisoined.
You are influencing people to believe that autism can be caused mercury poisoning. That’s what I believe.
If my opinion is not true in the least, then no parents will say, “I’m sorry my child is dead now. I wish I hadn’t believed that autism was the result of mercury poisoning, but we thought that Mr. Rankin had some crediblity and that he must know what he was talking about since he’s a lawyer and educated, and he’s so nice, too.”
Autism is not ever caused by mercury poisoning, with the one exception of an embryo or fetus getting a high enough dose to impact development in the first 8 weeks. This came from Patricia Rodier who is an expert in embryology first of all and an autism researcher second.
You have bought a lie if you think that in any way your child has become autistic because of mercury in vaccines and that any form of chelation will help an autistic child become less autistic.
If you can counter my statement with science then do it. But you can’t.
I have looked at the science. I don’t know what you are looking at but it’s junk if it’s telling you that any treatment to remove any heavy metal is going to cure your child or in any way rewire his brain.
Teaching him can rewire his brain, up to a point. Mercury is not going to stop him from learning and taking out imaginary or real mercury is not going to improve his learning to the point where he can learn not to be autistic.
What about the minicolumns, what about the Purkinje celsl? What about the extra white matter. Have you read any of Casanova or Courchesne’s work?
I’m glad you are at least neutral on Buttar, but you as a lawyer ought to be able to apply logic to the evidence and see what Buttar is about. You ought to care about his dodgy behavior. It ought to ring alarm bells in a lawyers head…
there I go again believing that people ought to do the right thing.
Why are you so little interested in the evidence? I’m still appalled. A lawyer shouldn’t be “neutral” about potentially criminal behavior. Did you see what Orac wrote about the potential danger of ozone therapy? Do you care?
If a kid loses lots of red blood cells because of this quack treatment, is that just -ho hum? Will you be “neutral” about that, too? How many kids have to die or end up hospitalized before it’s not longer “neutral” to you?
It’s not just you Mr. Rankin, it’s you and all your “friends” who support the quack medicine that autistic kids are subjected to. You are -as a group- doing great harm.
If you read the page http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lead-poisoning/FL00068/DSECTION=7& you will learn that IV-EDTA chelation is indicated _only_ if the lead levels are above a certain point, specifically 45 mcg/dL of blood (note: it says “blood”, not hair and not urine). (It does mention an oral chelator, succimer, for Class III and some Class IV cases).
Did you understand that the _lead levels in the blood need to be known_? This is not a point of discussion or opinion. Chelation has risks, and the risks are taken when the when the amount of lead in the _blood_ is high enough.
And yes, autism is too complex for a one-size-fits-all response. Which is exactly why many of us are unhappy with the “autism is only caused by mercury/vaccines” crowd. The disgust is only increased with the promotion of folks like Rashid Buttar and his many cures for many things… even cancer. Like when one man has spent $200000 (two hundred thousand US dollars) on Dr. Buttar’s stuff, and the cancer has not been affected: http://cajuncowboy.com/Dr.Buttar.htm#stats
Rashid Buttar is a quack. His only reason for offering the treatments he does other than to make money off of desperate people. The sad thing is that he is not the only person who went through the process to become a qualified doctor (osteopathic doctors in the USA go through the same education and testing process as medical doctors, they are completely different than the osteopaths in the UK)… only to resort to scamming desperate people. The list includes Andrew Wakefield, Jeff Bradstreet (and his “Sea Buddies), Stephen Edelson, Roy Kerry, Lorraine Day, and the whole list here: http://www.casewatch.org/board/med/boardindex.shtml (and that list is only those who have come under disciplinary action, there are many more!).
Just as I do not assume lawyers are wealthy (around here they are a dime a dozen, so most are just middle class, and I know one who can barely afford to keep her used car running)… do not assume that because someone is licensed to practice medicine that they may not be a quack.
Have you read any of Casanova or Courchesne’s work?
Of course not. That’s not part of the Holy Canon of Proof That Mercury Causes Autism. The leaders of the group insist that if you do read such unapproved, heretical materials, you have to disbelieve them, claiming that Big Pharma (the deity of Evil Conspiracies) had them specially concocted just to divert rightful attention from the Mercury Causes Autism Truth.
I’ve been around a few cults. I know how they work.
Wade, let me be the next person to question the depth of your knowledge, since your posts on your blog about Humza Iqbal are getting on my last nerve right now.
Quick comment- there are two Stephen Edelson-s, one nearly killed some autistic kids, thereby becoming the godfather/forerunner of the popular quacks, and another one who’s in bad company but hasn’t come close to killing kids as far as I know, and still has his license, as far as I know. The one who is still practicing is in Oregon.
Stephen B. Edelson is the guy who lost his license, etc.
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/edelsonsuit.html
See – lawyers can be very helpful in stopping healthfraud and malpractice.
Bradstreet used to sell some stuff called “Sea Silver”, from what I hear (from parents who took their child to see Dr GodNews) it had colloidal silver in it. If it had colloidal silver in it – it could have caused the kids to turn permanently gray – their skin that is, not their hair.
If the founding mercury parents (Bernard et al) had decided that it was corn allergies or oven cleaner exposure or something else that made their kids autistic, we’d all be battling the same quacks selling a different line of cures. There’s no reason for people to suspect mercury over pesticides or plasticizers, but they won’t even budge of of mercury because they are all in this big sinking boat together and no one wants to be the rat that leaves first.
Ms Clark: “Quick comment- there are two Stephen Edelson-s, one nearly killed some autistic kids, thereby becoming the godfather/forerunner of the popular quacks, and another one who’s in bad company but hasn’t come close to killing kids as far as I know, and still has his license, as far as I know. The one who is still practicing is in Oregon.”
Yes.
Stephen *B* Edelson is the medical practitioner who has been suspended for nearly terminating a few autistic kids. Stephen *M* Edelson is the clinical psychologist who works alongside Rimland with the ARI/CSA dyad in the US.
Still – as you say – in bad company, but not likely to ever be a threat like the other one has been. Most clinical psychologists do not prescribe in the US (only some have taken the post-doc course in psychopharmaceuticals and practitioner prescribing).
It seems obvious to me from reading the varying opinions from scientists, parents and others that the only thing we can say with any degree of certainty regarding IV forms of chelation is that nobody really knows whats a safe level, or indeed, if it is safe at all.
The one thing we definitely know about in relation to IV EDTA and autism is that its use is heavily implicated in one death. It seems to me like _utter madness_ to incorporate aspects of this process when there hasn’t even been a release of the autopsy for poor Tariq.
When he died, lots of people made much of that fact that we couldn’t draw any firm conclusions about what ultimately led to his death – if people really do believe that then on what level is it a good idea to follow a new protocol that includes it?
Chelation itself is scary enough. Chelating using a drug that very likely had a hand in the death of a 5 year old but that _we don’t know the exact role of yet_ is simply asking for trouble.
Kev wrote: “When he died, lots of people made much of that fact that we couldn’t draw any firm conclusions about what ultimately led to his death – if people really do believe that then on what level is it a good idea to follow a new protocol that includes it?”
I can remember quite a few times when I nearly died in the name of “treatment”. Some were intentional and others were negligent. But I am willing to bet, that despite the fact that I was for instance at one point twice injected with a drug and each time my throat closed up, that had I actually died, they would have been saying something like “We don’t know what REALLY caused her death.”
(Actually in institutions it is frequent for a cause of death to be given that has nothing to do with the real cause of death, and that might have happened too. It is easy to attribute death to a seizure or a mysterious but heretofore-unrecognized heart defect, when in reality the death is murder or restraint procedures or a drug reaction or something.)
It would be quite easy in fact for people to make it sound (because this happens all the time) like I just mysteriously died when several people were on top of me (leaving suffocation out of it). Or like I just mysteriously died for no apparent reason (leaving a particular drug, and the staff’s knowledge of what the drug was doing to me all along, out of it). Or like I had, as one disgusting study shows, “asymptomatic bowel obstruction” (which mysteriously occurs among people whose staff don’t watch them closely enough, although the study of course attributes it to “mental retardation” or somesuch) ignoring the fact that I was vomiting and distended (because staff sure ignored it).
But at any rate, there are all kinds of ways to avoid responsibility for people’s death, and the “we don’t know what happened” one is all too familiar to me.
Amanda said: there are all kinds of ways to avoid responsibility for people’s death, and the “we don’t know what happened†one is all too familiar to me.
Thank You Amanda
At the risk of sounding rational, I’d like to point out a few things about EDTA:
[1] EDTA has an affinity for lead that is close to its affinity for calcium (and magnesium). For those without the benefit of a degree in chemistry, that means that EDTA will remove calcium (and magnesium) and lead with equal ease. For that reason, real chelation with EDTA is done using calcium EDTA – it can’t take up calcium from the blood, but it can “swap” a calcium atom for one of lead.
[2] EDTA has not been the chelating agent of choice for lead since at least 1992 (that’s 13 years ago), when DMSA was given official USFDA sanction. EDTA (which must be given IV) became a “secondary” treatment, reserved for those cases where the lead levels were exceedingly high or where the patient couldn’t take oral medications.
[3] EDTA has been tested for mercury chelation and found lacking. It has far less affinity for mercury than DMSA. In fact, it has far less affinity for lead than DMSA (or DMPS).
Oh, and before someone trots out the old “oral EDTA” canard, let me add one more EDTA fact:
[4] EDTA is not absorbed to any significant degree when given orally.
So, with all this information, can someone (Wade, Erik?) explain why anyone would use both EDTA and DMPS? The combination does not increase the efficacy, but adding IV EDTA significantly increases the risk of injury or death.
I’m sure that Dr. Buttar’s apologists will have interesting (if not entirely rational) explanations for his antics. I await them eagerly.
Prometheus.
Amanda: “… there are all kinds of ways to avoid responsibility for people’s death, and the “we don’t know what happened†one is all too familiar to me.”
Indeed. Strikes me that there are laws and professional associations to protect the professionals, but where are the associations and laws that protect the co-called “consumer” of “services”?
Despite this, however, I am not about to be jumping on the chelation train: the medics practising this “technique” are being just as negligent in their practice as the practitioners whose actions lead to injury or death by other means.
As Kev said: “When (Tariq) died, lots of people made much of that fact that we couldn’t draw any firm conclusions about what ultimately led to his death – if people really do believe that then on what level is it a good idea to follow a new protocol that includes it?”
Precisely.
In this respect, the chelation-for-autism-which-is-mercury-poisoning doctors are being just as irresponsible as the doctors whom the autism-is-mercury-poisoning brigade call irresponsible regarding the use of vaccines with mercury-based preservatives in them.
Amanda: “But at any rate, there are all kinds of ways to avoid responsibility for people’s death, and the “we don’t know what happened†one is all too familiar to me.”
Another thing about this sort of statement is that – if the professionals who use it for responsibility-avoidance actually mean it – then they were negligent in their practice at not recording and monitoring the situation precisely enough.
I get the feeling that, as soon as that one is trotted out, legal proceedings should immediately ensue.
David wrote: “I get the feeling that, as soon as that one is trotted out, legal proceedings should immediately ensue.”
Yeah.
What’s interesting to me is that in my case I can actually see the records that have in one instance been falsified. The problem is that with so little power in the hands of the recipient of this crap that masquerades as services, who’s going to be believed?
There are agencies that are supposedly set up as oversight but they don’t work too well. In fact I’ve seen people reported to, for instance, Adult Protective Services, who did nothing wrong, but I’ve seen real complaints to Adult Protective Services get nowhere. Same old crap happens.
Amanda: “There are agencies that are supposedly set up as oversight but they don’t work too well. In fact I’ve seen people reported to, for instance, Adult Protective Services, who did nothing wrong, but I’ve seen real complaints to Adult Protective Services get nowhere. Same old crap happens.”
Sadly, this is true.
So much for a caring society, eh?
There is no link between thimerosal (or mercury in general) and autism… this is partly because who will run such a test scenario. On the other hand no one mentions articles such as http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v9/n9/full/4001529a.html which test thimerosal on mice and DOES find a link to neural development. It can be easily discounted if you want to but it does show the possibility of thimerosal related neural disorders. Granted it seems to be genetically predispositioned to some degree but nonetheless it is there.
Sorry, but you are bringing up some old news. In http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/480683?src=search her findings were discussed.
If you look well enough you will see that Mady Hornig’s mice are often mentioned in this blog. Especially in the comments. She is often mentioned in the Autism-Diva blog, and here:
http://photoninthedarkness.blogspot.com/2005/07/dr-hornigs-autistic-mice_29.html
Actually, she worked with a special kind of mouse… and if it is sometimes difficult to decide if a human is autistic, how can you tell if a mouse is autistic?
We’ve talked this to death Jim. The upshot is that the study was judging mice reactions to a behavioural issue. As HN says, how were these mice diagnosed as autistic? Further, thiomersal may well cause neural damage in sufficient doses – that doesn’t equate to causing autism.
Neither I nor Hornig states that the mice are autistic, simply that there are various types of impaired development. I neither support nor condemn the idea that autism is related to mercury. Can neurological problems (even autism) be related to Mercury poisoning… yes, but is that the case… that is unknown.
And this has relevence to Rashid Buttar offering EDTA chelation how?
Also, autism and mercury poisoning are two different things. Go to the Archive link at the top of this page. Click on it… then go down and check for the “mercury” comments. You will find more relevent comments there.
Someone apparently wants to ignore the lessons learned from the links HN provided.
The Hornig study isn’t the one anyone wants to point to for answers. The Hornig study is a failure at the experimental design stage: excretion kinetics were absolutely ignored. I wonder what would have happened if a year’s worth of Mg, Na, or K ions were injected over a couple of days.
Jim Slade : Can neurological problems (even autism) be related to Mercury poisoning… yes
Of course neurological problems can be related to mercury. It’s a neurotoxin. Unchallenged. Can thimerosal or does thimerosal cause autism? (hint: Yes isn’t the right answer)
Will SJL mice have problems including neurological problems when they are injected with mercury? Yes
Will SJL mice have problems including neurological problems when injected with substances other than mercury? Yes
Will SJL mice continue to chew through the skulls of their littermates after they’ve been injected with EDTA? I bet the survivors would.