Archive | 2005

Evidence of Harm List Gets Flakier

10 Jul

Alongside the main players on the Evidence of Harm mail list such as Lujene Clarke and Lenny Schafer are starting to appear some truly fascinating people. It really is becoming quite an education watching this list descend into a fever pit of conspiracy theory, suspicion, paranoia, quasi-religious (and out-and-out religious) hysteria and ravings.

A sure sign of how strong one’s argument is is the quality of its support. In this respect, the EoH list is in increasingly bad shape. Alongside J.B Handley and the illogical Lujene Clarke who believes you can contract Aspergers at age 8 and upwards are some real off-the-wall whackos:

Herman Hugh Fudenberg, M.D.

Fudenberg, who has posted several times on the EoH list is possibly the most tainted supporter EoH/Mercury/Thimerosal has.

In November 1995, the South Carolina medical board found Fudenberg “guilty of engaging in dishonorable, unethical, or unprofessional conduct,” fined him $10,000, ordered him to surrender his license to prescribe controlled substances (narcotic drugs), and placed his license on indefinite suspension. The Board’s order, shown below, said that he could apply for probationary status if he underwent a neuropsychiatric examination and was judged capable of practicing medicine safely. In March 1996, he was permitted to resume practice under terms of probation that did not permit him to prescribe any drugs. His license expired in January 2004; and in March 2004, he applied to have it reinstated. However, after a hearing in which the Board considered a neuropsychatric report issued in 2003, Fudenberg agreed to remain in a “retired” status and withdrew his application for reactivation of his license. The South Carolina board’s Web site lists his license as “lapsed.”

Casewatch.

Fudenberg is a big mate of Andrew Wakefield:

Andrew Wakefield had filed patent claims for a vaccine and a possible cure for autism, based on a fringe theory of “transfer factors”. His collaborator and “co-inventor” was Hugh Fudenberg, who claimed in a 2004 interview with Brian Deer to cure autistic children with his own bone marrow.

Brian Deer.

There are, of course, plenty of genuinely disturbing kooks on the EoH list. Lenny Schafer, for example who doesn’t care if he’s right or wrong – its become a political battle for him:

The message here is that the autism-mercury cabal is committed to winning – even if they are wrong! They have clearly abandoned any pretense of scientific inquiry and are striving for a political solution.

Prometheus.

Everything that the cabal disagrees with is never argued with. Its simply shunted aside by either referring to it as written by ‘autism holocaust deniers’ or ‘Big Pharma’. In this way, unpalatable truths are casually tossed aside. I’d really really like to know how many EoH listers privately go back and read up on this stuff. I know a lot of them read this blog for example (you can deny it but yours and Yahoo’s referrer logs cannot lie my friends) and if you’re one of these people, please try and see the science past your conspiracy theory. I’ve no doubt US (and UK) Pharma companies act badly on occasion but you have moved the goalposts way beyond ‘Big Pharma’ culpability. Ask yourself if you really believe that everyone from your President right down to _and including_ your local family Doctor are all in collusion. Because thats what it would take – the collusion of just about every health care professional in your country – to keep this conspiracy alive.

Terrorism – Yawn.

7 Jul

I don’t live in London but half of my family live around London and a lot of my friends do too. A lot of people I don’t know too well but respect the shit out of also live and/or work there too as well as a whole load of people I don’t know and have never/will never meet. It seems somebody(ies) take exception to that and felt that today was the opportune moment to try and remove them from existence. In approaching (so far) 40 cases, they succeeded.

I’ve spoken to the vast majority of people I care about who I know were in London today, including a close friend who I know gets the bus on the Marble Arch route that the decimated double decker takes so, with a few exceptions I know my people are safe.

Personally I couldn’t give a shit which of the self-centered moronic groups failed to impress anyone today. Possibly it was Osama and his terribly amusing upper-middle class revolution. Or maybe it was the ‘real’ IRA, or ETA, or anyone of a number of other human scum, does anyone really care? I don’t. I don’t think the British people do. You lack the balls to argue your case so resort to attacking civilians. This demonstrates both the lack of your intellect and the weakness of your position.

Whoever you are you need to face this: you took your best shot and came up woefully short. You attacked a country that single handedly repelled the might of the Luftwaffe 60 years ago and who not only prevented an invasion but who took the fight to Europe. What will happen next is this: we’ll honour and celebrate the lives of our dead, then we’ll bury them and then we’ll go on with our lives without worrying about you or your inadequacies. We lived through the best the IRA had to offer for over 30 years. Whatever made you think anything _you_ could do would impress us?

We’ll be back up and running by next week, moaning about work, getting pissed at the weekends, taking the piss out of the French, sneering at the idea of being productive and not giving a shit what you or anyone else thinks. We’ll have 40 or so more names to add to honour at days of national celebration and thats that. And thats the thing you hate the most isn’t it? Being ignored? You desire fear and legitimacy right? Well sorry, we don’t really do that here. All you’ve really done is united us in a way we haven’t been united for quite a long time. Now shhhh, go play somewhere else and leave the democracy for the grown ups.

David Kirby: Impartial Journalist.

7 Jul

David Kirby’s superb, even-handed account of the investigation into this ongoing, high-stakes controversy is fascinating and compelling

Bernard Rimland, Autism Research Institute; Autism Society of America

Kirby doesn’t offer his own verdict on the debate…

Polly Maurice, The New York Times Book Review

Walking the middle line, Kirby’s book remains one of the most thoroughly researched accounts of the thimerosal controversy thus far…

Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) ***

Evidence of Harm explores both sides of this controversy…

All quotes available on EOH.

So, according to himself, David Kirby is a thorough, impartial, dedicated boy-scout of a reporter. He offers an ‘even handed account’ that ‘doesn’t offer his own verdict’ and which ‘walks the middle line’ and thus explores ‘both sides’ of the controversy.

All these things are what you would expect from a journalist with some amount of ethics – after all, what is journalism that is one sided but fancily spun propaganda? – and so it must be something of a relief to most that such an important issue as the cause of autism is entrusted to such a thorough and ethical journalist.

So it comes as something of a surprise (well, no, it doesn’t really) to find that actually, despite good PR to the contrary, David Kirby is neither ethical nor impartial in his role as a journalist. He is in fact simply a partisan hack.

David Kirby’s website is ‘designed’ (and speaking as a web designer myself I use that phrase in its loosest possible sense) by ‘Wendys Webs‘. Interested to see who had done such an, um, _interesting_ design job on Kirby’s site, I performed a WHOIS on the domain and the owner was revealed as one Wendy A Fournier.

‘Well, so what?’ , I hear you ask. For an answer to that question you’ll need to head on over to the National Autism Association but make sure to use Internet Explorer as whoever (ahem) designed and built their website made it unworkable in Gecko based browsers.

And there on the Listed Directors page you will find Wendy Fournier – the President of the National Autism Association. Lets read her brief biog:

When Wendy’s youngest daughter was diagnosed with autism, doctors gave her little to hope for. She began to research treatment options via the internet. Here she discovered that there is indeed a great deal of hope. Hope comes in the form of biomedical treatments, therapies, enlightened medical professionals, a few brave politicians and an amazing group of parents around the world who are fighting for their children.

Aha, biomedical treatments, therapies, enlightened medics and brave politicos. Sound familiar at all? These are all code for ‘mercury causes autism’. Here’s how impartial Wendy Fournier is:

Wendy Fournier (Portsmouth, RI), parent and president of NAA, asks [referring to Mercury/Thimerosal], “Why would Shih, Johnson or any parent deliberately give their child a substance that’s label contains a Jolly-Roger symbol?”

Yahoo.

…according to Aventis, removal of Thimerosal from the flu shots may present vaccine shortages and a higher risk for a flu outbreak. Parent Wendy Fournier says when you look at all the information, you quickly realize it’s a weak excuse. “They’ve had years to create mercury-free batches. Thimerosal is cheap — that’s why they want it in there,” she says.

Royalrife

So, David Kirby’s (who offers an ‘even handed account’ that ‘doesn’t offer his own verdict’ and which ‘walks the middle line’ and thus explores ‘both sides’ of the controversy remember) website is designed and built by someone who blames mercury for autism. How very impartial your propaganda is turning out to be Mr Kirby.

I’m also aware that at some point in the past the domain evidenceofharm.com was listed as being owned by SafeMinds. These details have been changed now but it is another nail in the coffin of Kirby’s impartiality. I wonder how much he was paid by Safeminds for his propaganda and I wonder how much of that came from charitable contributions?

Tom Cruise Reminds Me Of Anti Thimerosal Brigade

6 Jul

Tom Cruise recently went on the Today Show (a US politics/lifestyle type show) to big up The War Of The Worlds. He and the host ended up discussing Tom’s bizarre atitude to Psychiatry (which he claims is a psuedoscience) and Scientology (which is obviously a much more rational thing to believe in!). Apparently Tom ‘lost the plot’ a bit and started raving.

I read a transcript of the interview (which I’ll link to in a minute) and its true. He’s almost frothing at the mouth. But what struck me the most was the eerie similarity in attitude between Cruise and the ant-vax/thimerosal crowd. All those people like Lujene Clarke, David Kirby, SafeMinds et al share the same beliefs as Cruise really: all science is a sham and they are the sole holders of (fanfare please) The Real Truth. They ignore reason, they ignore science, they alter and cherry-pick quotes to suit their agenda and they claim that they and only they are ‘well informed’ on the issue.

Its a dangerous arrogance that, just like Cruise, is short (sorry) on logic and big on bullshit and self-serving prophecy. Go have a read of the Cruise transcript and you’ll see what I mean immediately.

The Design Of Amazon: Happy 10th Anniversary!

3 Jul

On the tenth anniversary of Amazon being an online retailer (well, the actual date is July 16th but what the hell) I thought it might be fun to take a look at why they’re so successful in design terms.

Lets be honest. For most designers, Amazon ain’t too pretty. In fact it looks grim in places. The code is also an unsemantic mess of nested tables and inappropriate code choices. These two things alone are enough to make any standards based designer grit his or her teeth. It also won’t validate, makes no effort to be accessible and makes lots of schoolboy coding errors.

But it works brilliantly. Its the embodiment of usability and a role model for how effective Information Architecture can be when researched and used well. The design elements it does use are used well, its fast loading and a joy to navigate.

So lets have a look at a typical Amazon product page (warning: 162kb image) at some of the things Amazon does right.Firstly there’s the overall layout of the page. Everything is structured in order of importance _to the user_ from top to bottom (most important at top, least at bottom).

Most importantly of all we have our main navigation area. The (clickable, of course) logo is left aligned in the traditional manner – the area that studies indicate users look first – thus ensuring the user knows exactly where they are and who they’re dealing with. These things add to the users comfort level. Next to the logo is the main site overview personal options – your account, your wish list, your basket, how you get help – which again reassures the user that _they_ are at the centre of the process.

Next is the site navigation. The cream bar is top level section areas and the blue bar is secondary level drill-down options. Note the second cream bar under the blue bar which carries Search options but carries on the ‘navigation’ colours of cream and blue (blue of course being a good choice as it mirrors the colour a user traditionally associates with progress and action – the blue of an unstyled hyperlink).

Underneath that we have one of things that Amazon does so well – internal advertising. Bright red to reflect the traditional colours of a UK Sale and note that the word ‘sale’ is the biggest typeface on the whole page. There’s no way you can miss that. Especially as its incorporated well with the rest of the page rather than floating about as an ineffectual banner.

Next is the hub of this page template – the product detail area. Everything about this area reeks of highly effective information architecture and copy writing. Look how _sparse_ the details are. Not a thing is wasted and yet not a significant details is overlooked. In that relatively small area you get price, terms and conditions, availability, the option to purchase a second hand copy, release date, the number of items associated with the product, the label, ASIN and catalogue numbers, the option to add the product to your shopping basket and/or wish list, any associated special offers, how Amazon customers rate the product, the opportunity to rate the product in order to hone your personal recommendations (Amazon appreciates latent semantics as much as Google!) and , oh yeah, a picture of the product itself.

Immediately below this area Amazon offer a textbook definition of the idea of user goals supporting business goals. Of course Amazon want you to spend more money so they offer a great way to get you to part with more cash but in a way thats so damn useful you don’t really mind – the famous ‘Customers who like this may also like’ areas. The first, interestingly, are links to offsite selling areas (Ticketmaster and Yahoo in this example page) but underneath the Track Listing (note that these two areas buttress the all-important Track Listing which is something most people want to see and thus they get these two areas in their viewing area too) is the ‘customers who bough this also bought’ which is a genius piece of viral marketing – allowing your customers to dictate the fashion will always bring more sales than dictating fashion _to_ the customer.

Next up we have customer reviews. Something of a double edged sword I’d guess Amazon keep these as they enhance their reputation as transparent and actively _useful_ to customers. Thats worth more than any one negative review can potentially lose them in revenue. A brand associated with implicit trust _and_ usefullness is worth its weight in gold.

After this is sectional bottom nav for long pages like these thus preventing users the necessity of scrolling back up and maybe getting bored in the process.

Last on the page is the stuff that Amazon correctly judges its users will need least often. Its not trying to hide the process of returning things if you need to but Amazon realise that such an eventuality will be a relative rarity for any one customer and so they place that information where its fairly easy to find but doesn’t impinge on the essential page activities of reading about and buying product.

All thats said I do find it disappointing that Amazon’s site isn’t particularly accessible and that they use non-validating, non-semantic code. These are things that elevate great sites into superlative sites. Amazon would save money on bandwidth, have even better download times and have a perfect base for any future re branding – why stop with the job only 50% done Amazon? Why not start the next ten years with a substantial under-the-bonnet change and reap the benefits enjoyed by your equally large contemporaries like Multimap, Yahoo and MSN?

The Autistics Are Coming!! Oh Dear God!!!

3 Jul

If you search for anything related to autism you always come across parent/family led groups who describe autism in increasingly demonic terms. It used to be that someone was simply autistic but nowadays we have the ‘hell’ of autism or the ‘abyss’ of autism being used to attach negative emotion to autism.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when social commenters talk about the autism epidemic. This ‘epidemic’ revolves around the idea that 1 in 166 kids in America are autistic and of course, epidemic is just another emotive word tool designed to elicit the maximum amount of scare-mongering from people.

Every so often the ‘ante’ is upped and another emotive word tool is used that is more fear-mongering than before. One such idiotic phrase coined after 26th Dec 2004 was ‘autism tsunami’. In a breath taking lack of respect for the 200,000 dead and an even more breath taking lack of respect for autistics themselves, autism was portrayed as a phenomenom equal to that which killed nearly a quarter of a million people. I wonder how the families of those who lost loved ones on Boxing Day felt about that comparison?

Very recently that ante has been upped again. From terrible yet local natural disasters to pure human evil. In a mind bogglingly tasteless recent Schafer Autism Report, the man himself said that:

Autism holocaust deniers lack the science.

This was made in reference to the Danish study that debunked the link between Thimerosal and autism. I haven’t read the article itself but this incredible reference left me open mouthed. Apparently we who follow the science on this issue are akin to holocaust deniers. Thats right – we’re apparently the same as some snivelling little shit with a skinhead, Docs and a swastika tattoed on their imbecilic skulls. Wow, thanks Lenny. I can see how you could easily draw a comparion between those who don’t believe you’re right about the thimerosal/autism link and the Nazi genocide of over 6 million people. Jesus fucking Christ man – get a sense of perspective. How utterly disrespectful to the memories of those who died in the Second World War than to have some jumped up little man sully the concept of free speech with appalling comparisons to those people who veterans all over the free world died to save us all from.

But then we’re dealing with the same loose affiliation of people who label autistic people as mad or fakers or who think their best chance for a cure lies with a quack with some sun cream that cures autism, old age and cancer.

Oh and the autism epidemic? I think you might want to have a read of this.

My Crazy June

30 Jun

What a month.

It started off really well with it being my turn to guest blog for John which brought me to a much wider audience. However it also prompted a few panic stricken emails to my hosts as it became clear that I was going to use my monthly bandwidth allowance within 6 days. Being the all round great bunch of guys they are (hi Marty, hi Khalid ;o) ) they found a way to let me keep going. They really are a great company with amazing customer support -but don’t take my word for it read the impartial reviews for yourself.

I was given some fantastic content by other people to mark the inaugural Autistic Pride Day all of which added up to a great day.

During the course of the month I got linked to from some fantastic blogs: Andy Clarke, AutismDiva, Orac, Jon Hicks, Ballastexistenz, BD4D, Alvit.de, forgetfoo, Neurodiversity, Martagnan, Euphemize, Skeptico, Bonni, Lisa McMillan and Matt amongst others.

Then of course was the big day – our Tabby was born and almost the same day I found I’d been listed on Unmatched Style, CSSVault and nv30.

All this activity took me from a sedate 1.6GB per month to approaching 17GB this month and taken my average unique visitors per day to over 2000.

So a big thank you to all who listed me, linked me or talked about me (and special thanks to John of course ;o) ) and here’s hoping I can capitalise on this extra traffic and get people talking more about the specifics of design and the rights of autistics.

Open Letter To The Accessibility Task Force

29 Jun

Colleagues,

Your joint appointment to the ATF is a visible positive indicator that the concept of web accessibility is maturing. I think all the choices for this task force are inspired and that between you you have an excellent pool of academic and practical experience.

That said I think you have a tricky task ahead of you. I note the positive steps you’ve taken in asking on your personal sites what we as designers and developers think are important steps and I’ve spoken my piece as part of this process. I also note with some concern that a basic concept is in danger of being ignored in some of the replies I’ve read (including my own).

Whilst its true that its important that CMS’s can handle content better and that screenreaders work with browsers as oppose to against them (to take two highlighted examples) I think we need to first have a task force that can put the house of accessibility in order.

I’m not talking about anything adversarial with WAI but it seems to me that the most common issues to do with the concept of accessibility revolve around what it actually *is*. This is an issue that both WAI and GAWDS have totally failed to address and yet without this basic, fundamental understanding our comprehension in this respect is being steered with a warped rudder.

Even our so called ‘guru’s’ have occasionally odd ideas about accessibility and what/who it encompasses. I read a recent comment from one of the biggest gurus in the field recently chastising someone who suggested content should be accessible as well as the code and interface design. Obviously this ‘guru’ is unaware of issues affecting those with a cognitive based disability.

Another big name claims that accessibility should only be about removing barriers and that pages scripted to take account of users real-life needs fail to grasp the ethos of accessibility.

Obviously there is substantial confusion not just about tools and technique but at a much more fundamental level. To that end I think item 1 on your agenda should be defining accessibility for web developers and all sub tasks of this item should be a clarification on who the main user base are, the software tools they may use, how we can currently level the playing field for some of these users and the steps we need to take to provide enhanced interfaces for some of these users.

We also need a redefining of the main user base. Currently and historically, the perception has been of users with a visual impairment. The majority of debate revolves around these users and to a lesser extent users with mobility issues. This situation ignores a third of those covered by the UK DDA. I’d like to see the task force question this emphasis – whats the point of a concept of accessibility that only caters to 2/3rds of its customers?

I’d also like to see a full and frank discussion of WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 and an extensive debate on their shortcomings. Its obvious that WAI aren’t going to do this and I think you guys are ideally placed to highlight these issues.

Accessibility is a noble goal that deserves better treatment than its so far received.

The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

Thats the quote on the WAI home page. So far, due to uncertainty, poor defining and poor propaganda, WAI have utterly failed to convince either developers and/or business. One could argue its beyond their remit just as one could argue that what I’m propounding here is beyond *your* remit but in the absence of any constructive leadership from WAI its possibly up to WaSP and this task force to define accessibility in ways that are universally comprehendable by developers *and* business and that don’t exclude large sectors of the client base that the overall concept is supposed to empower and at the same time put pressure on WAI to do the same. I think these things are vital before we can even think of more detailed agendas touching on implementations such as CSS, software (screenreaders _or_ CMS’s) or the necessity or otherwise of validation.

Tabitha Catherine Leitch

26 Jun

Our Tabby was born at 12.26am today.

She weighed in at 8lbs and 6ozs and has a good lot of dark hair together with her Mum’s big blue eyes.

After all the false starts and sudden stops the delivery itself happened relatively quickly. Naomi started going into established labour at about 10pm and just under 2 and a half hours later, Tabby made her appearance.

Megan woke up about 2.30am and came downstairs to be introduced to her new sister. She’s pretty fascinated by the whole thing and cried when Tabby was taken up to go to bed. How long this fascination will last is another matter of course! Megan is pretty fickle!

Everyone else has either left (the Midwives) or gone to bed (Naomi, Tabby, my Mum-in-law) so its just us hardy party animals left (Megs and me) to celebrate our new 5 person family – I didn’t phone Anthony to wake him at that time – although I couldn’t resist a call to my parents.

My abject apologies for the lack of a picture – I was so wrapped up in the whole thing I forgot to take one before Tabby went to bed. I’ll post one up ASAP.

Tabitha Catherine

Letter To Dr Rashid Buttar, Chelationist

24 Jun

Dear Doctor Rashid Buttar,

I understand that you sell an autism cure called TD-DPMS (Trans Dermal DPMS). As the parent of an autistic child I’m very curious about this product and how it helps autistics.

I’m led to believe that TD-DPMS is not FDA approved and that David Kirby (author: Evidence of Harm) reports that:

one manufacturer of it told compounding pharmacists not to make up transdermal patches of the stuff because some kids had had bad reactions with rashes and even bleeding and scarring.

AutismDiva

Is this true? Is this bad reaction the reason you decided to turn to making TD-DPMS a cream instead of a patch? How does this affect the effectiveness of the product? As I’m sure you know being a Toxicologist, Chelation agents need to absorb a certain amount of the product in order to even begin to be effective. Where are the studies I can get hold of to see the rates of absorption for myself?

In fact, this brings me neatly onto a related matter. Such an important scientist as yourself must surely have peers flocking to review your work. As such an august scientist you are no doubt aware of the most basic scientific precept of subjecting your scientific work for review so that others may critically appraise your work and replicate it. I was surprised therefore to discover that a search of http://www.pubmed.gov – the site that lists all scientific articles in peer-reviewed scientific literature – and found nothing when searching for ‘Rashid Buttar’. Did you submit your thesis under a pseudonym perhaps? I’m positive this must be an oversight and that the safety and efficacy of a product that you regularly use on children has been regularly tested and re-tested by both yourself and your peers as to do otherwise is tantamount to admitting one is afraid to submit one’s work for peer review – I’m certain that can’t be the case for you! The commenter below must surely be mistaken?

To be listed in PubMed, you have to have published scientific articles in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It’s just that simple. Apparently Dr. Buttar couldn’t be bothered to submit his work to real scientific journals. It’s hard to be taken seriously as a researcher or scientist if you aren’t published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Certainly, I don’t take him seriously. In Buttar’s own words, he doesn’t know how much of the stuff is going in to the kid or how long it stays there.

Orac Knows (comments)

Moving on, I was heartened to read in a PDF of yours that:

In a study due to be released by the winter of 2004, conclusive data was accumulated regarding the efficacy of a specifically formulated transdermally applied combination of DMPS conjugated with a number of peptides, called TD-DMPS

drhirani.com

Although I was unable to find a copy of any report containing any data – conclusive or otherwise – and I was concerned to note that its now fully 6 months after your stated deadline (trouble with Secretary’s?), I feel sure that once this report is subjected to the rigours of scientific peer review in a scientific journal will fully vindicate the use of your TD-DPMS. I look forward particularly to seeing data on the long term effects of chelation on children and the incontrovertible proof that Chelation cures autism in all cases. Could you provide a definitive date of publication and details of which Medical Journal it will be appearing in please.

By the way, I know your cream is specifically geared towards kids as your remarks here make that clear:

Our success has been all under the age of nine, nine or under. Now since then, when I presented to Congress I told them that I didn’t think this would be effective for older children because the older children would use it, I didn’t see — they got better, they started talking, but they’re not in my book considered normal. They can read, but they’ll never do much more than flip hamburgers for a living, that type of thing.

Dr Rashid Buttar.

In fact, it was after reading this that I decided to contact you. Anyone with such an obvious empathy and deep understanding of autism and autistics is just the sort of person I’d like involved in my daughters treatment. Its also good to see how concerned you are with treating non-verbal autistics as a matter of choice. Such selfless dedication can only be lauded in this day and age and lets face it – those autistics who can talk aren’t probably such an inconvenience to their parents and possibly don’t look quite as heart-wrenching in your parents videos. Its OK – I’m fully aware of the need to be marketable and nothing pulls at the heart strings as much as a child trapped in the ‘abyss of autism’ as one person recently called it.

It was a bit puzzling though. I know of several autistic adults who were diagnosed as low functioning in childhood who later grew up and became reclassified as high functioning. How could that happen do you think? Possibly a naturally occurring ‘hot spring’ of TD-DPMS they fell into? A kind of ‘Old faithful’ of Chelation? I mean, they claim they just ‘developed’ as they grew up but that can’t be right can it? People don’t just develop with age do they? Especially kids?

I was also interested to see that you test for high levels of Mercury by using hair analysis. The reason I was interested in this is that the AMA say that:

The AMA opposes chemical analysis of the hair as a determinant of the need for medical therapy and supports informing the American public and appropriate governmental agencies of this unproven practice and its potential for health care fraud.

and that

A recent 2-year study of students exposed to fumes from metal welding found that hair analysis did not consistently reflect blood levels of 11 heavy metals.

Quackwatch.

So now I was confused. On one hand I had the AMA and their 2 year peer reviewed study and on the other I had you. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m *sure* you’re really really late close to releasing your data for scientific review but you’ll forgive me if I entertained a moment of doubt. I mean, these guys seem to really know their stuff:

Hair mercury levels are not an accurate indicator of mercury exposure. Hair testing has never been standardized to provide meaningful information.

They then go on to list a whole load of reasons why not and then say:

Thus it should be obvious that analyzing hair for mercury is a waste of time and money and cannot be used to diagnose mercury poisoning. A competent practitioner would easily know this. It is fraudulent to use hair analysis to diagnose “toxic levels” of mercury (or any other heavy metal) or to assess nutritional status (and claim someone is “deficient” and prescribe or sell them supplements).

OK, so I was getting a little annoyed now. These guys were calling you a fraud! I mean here they were with their reams and reams of scientifically validated evidence and there you were with your cream and they had the temerity to call you a fraudulant quack! The cheek of some people!

And talking of cheek, I read that:

Dr. Buttar is the Vice-Chairman of the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology and holds a position of Visiting Scientist at North Carolina State University

And yet when I visited the NCSU website I couldn’t find any mention of you – don’t worry though, I emailed the site and asked them to confirm your status so no doubt they’ll be rectifying this error soon. Actually, now that I think about it it was a few days ago I mailed them and I haven’t had a response yet. Hmmm. Odd.

And the American Board of Medical Specialties – whats wrong with those guys? They say:

The American Board of Medical Specialties does not recognize the American Board of Chelation Therapists, the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology, the American Board of Chelation Therapy, and the Board Of Medical Toxicology

Casewatch.

The way they word it – you know, making Chelationists put this paragraph on consent forms and everything – makes it look like they don’t trust you and think you’re all a bunch of quacks. Man, you must long for the days when the medical community just closed ranks against all outsiders. People had proper respect for alternative medical practitioners then I bet.

On that note, I was fascinated to read some of your other patients testimonials. The guy who says that:

He (Dr Buttar) told me that most of his patients were much worse off than I and that God had Blessed me by giving me a wake up call and that he could enable my body to heal itself! Now that is the first time I have ever heard a Doctor say he could enable my body to heal cancer.

CajunCowboy.

Impressive stuff! Is the cancer cure done with cream too? I actually telephoned NHSDirect to see if they’d heard of this treatment but I didn’t get a straight answer. Actually they sounded a bit weird. There was a lot of what sounded like giggling on the other end of the line. Not very professional is it?

I was also interested in your Anti-Aging stuff:

As an anti-aging specialist, I have read many of the popular health and longevity books. Very few have impressed me. For this reason, I probably never would have read Natural Hormonal Enhancement had my associate not insisted, after reading it himself. Admittedly, I picked-up the book with a negative predisposition, assuming it would be more of the same. I couldn’t
have been more wrong in that assumption. Natural Hormonal Enhancement is very well-written and well-researched and it contains information that even many of my peers don’t understand or don’t recognize. I highly recommend this book.

Dr Rashid Buttar

The book in question being described on that site as:

Finally a Rational Approach to Health and Fitness! The Revolutionary Breakthrough that Renders Conventional Exercise and Diet Programs Obsolete! Harness the Most Powerful Biological Force in the Universe – Your Own Hormones – to Reshape Your Body and Turn Back the Hands of Time on Aging!

Blimey! You’re one busy guy! Cures for autism, cancer and even old age! Now, I know many people would find this suspicious but not me. Anything that says they can ‘reshape my body’ without exercise or diet gets my vote! Can I still drink beer?

In closing then Dr Buttar, I’d really appreciate answers to the questions I’ve posed you here, particularly on the effectiveness of TD-DPMS. I have a fairly large website that gets around 1300 unique visitors a day (that’s a few hundred thousand hits) and I’ve posted a copy of this email up so all my visitors can read it – I’ll be happy to post any response you can give me up there too. I know lots and lots of people who are asking questions about you.

In closing, my apologies for leaving the HTML in place in this email – I couldn’t be bothered to do my job properly. I’m sure you know what I mean. Look forward to hearing from you very very soon.

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