DIY Chelation: Not Recommended
June 14, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Says Hilary Godwin, chair of environmental health sciences at UCLA and the mother of an autistic son in a June 16th LA Times article about the dangers of over-the-counter chelating products:
“Parental anxiety drives people to try anything.”
Anything and everything (including a certain kind of enema), all in the name of detoxifying autistic children’s bodies of supposed excessive heavy metals, toxins, and so forth. Dr. Michael Shannon, chief of emergency medicine at Children’s Hospital in Boston and a specialist in lead poisoning, says this about the dangers of over-the-counter—”do it yourself”—chelators:
Chelation is sometimes necessary to treat severe cases of metal poisoning, but it’s “shocking and worrisome” that such products are sold over the counter…………..
According to Shannon, chelation agents have several drawbacks that make them too risky to use without close guidance from a physician. Compounds such as DMSA [dimercaptosuccinic acid] and EDTA [ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid] aren’t very choosy when it comes to binding to metals, so they’ll wash out important metals such as iron, calcium and manganese along with mercury and lead. Chelation agents can also be toxic to the liver. And if a person really does have an overload of lead or mercury, Shannon says the top priority should be removing the source of the metal, not taking a pill. If chelation is necessary, it should be done by a doctor who specializes in treatment for poisoning.
EDTA capsules have another shortcoming, Shannon says. Unlike DMSA, the compound isn’t easily absorbed through the digestive system, which is why doctors deliver it through an IV. “There’s no evidence that it works when taken orally,” he says.
The hypothesis that vaccines or something in vaccines (such as mercury) can be linked to autism provides the rationale for chelating treatments. The thought is that, by expelling toxic “heavy metals” out of a child’s system, that child can start to “heal” and even “recover” from autism. But chelation has more than a few risks; and at least one autistic child has died while undergoing chelation treatment. Chelation is not an approved treatment for autism.
The very notion that by expelling certain “toxic” elements, a child can be “healed” and can become no longer autistic, is dangerous. This equates autism with something toxic and poisonous; getting the autism out of a person via a treatment such as chelation seems tantamount to an exorcism. Besides the risks involved in chelation therapy itself, chelation is dangerous because it reinforces the idea that autism is something harmful and to be feared. But it’s not autism that is the enemy here but misinformed notions of what autism is, and of what autistic people need.
Parental anxiety is a powerful thing and perhaps we need to exercise more care in how we use it.
@Emily: Water. Out. Nose. Thank you.
In general: What’s with all the “my anecdote is more important than data because autism is killing America” people? Good gravy that’s insulting. I hope they don’t talk about their kids like that where they can HEAR.
I really promised myself I wouldn’t get roped back into this discussion, but when I saw the six figures comment, that just blew my mind. If I had six figures to spend, I certainly wouldn’t put it towards making my son a guinea pig. I’d put it away to make sure he has a place to live when he grows up or toward a trust in case he has trouble getting a job or hell maybe we’d take a trip around the world and let the kid have some fun. I wouldn’t subject him to unsuccessful treatment after unsuccessful treatment to further make him feel like something is significantly wrong with him. It’s bad enough he gets treated like a headcase by his peers, he doesn’t need it at home too.
And by the way, before you go jumping on me, I have tried some biomedical treatments. I’ve never gone whole hog and everythign we’ve done has been in the least invasive way possible, but I decided that he’s got a tough enough time without having to give up everything he enjoys or having a bunch of things shoved down his throat every day.
The only thing that we’ve seen help him progress substantially has been the different educational therapies: ABA, TEEACH, speech, and OT. He no longer gets ABA, but his school program has helped him enormously. As a matter of fact, he was doing much better BEFORE I was railroaded into trying medication (which we will be stopping) which he hates and is not helping. Sometimes there is a thing as too much intervention and I wonder if parents are really considering their children when they subject them to so many different ‘remedies.’
@ Steve
If you truly want to be responsible to the autism community, my suggestion is to partner up with a reputable DAN doctor.
There is no such thing as a reputable DAN doctor. When one practices quackery, you are not a respected member of the medical community.
How do you explain all of the recovery? How do you explain children that were once dx’d with classic autism, that are now completely recovered?
No one has ever produced a truly “recovered” or “cured” child. Not one has been written up in the reputable scientific literature by a responsible and competent physician who is a real autism expert, not a quack.
How do you explain children that were non-verbal at 6 years old who start talking within 6 months of beginning various treatments such as oxygen therapy?
Every child has a different capacity for learning, but each can learn with time. Maturation combined with education and competent medical management (ie not by quacks but by real autism experts) can and does allow kids to learn, some can learn a lot. It doesn’t mean they don’t have autism any more.
So called HBOT is pure quackery, what most parents are giving is not true hyperbaric pressures, O2 by nasal canula in an oxygen bar would give the same effect at a cheaper price, and no study so far that is reputable has recorded any true statistically significant change in autistics with this supposed HBOT.
I’m calling BS here. Please tell us where you get your opinions from, specifically. Don’t tell me “this study” or “that study”.
Well, I guess there is no way to change your closed mind, but my son sees competent and well respected physicians like Dr. Tim Buie, Dr. Margaret Baumann, among others, who don’t practice quackery, but actually DO the studies that are followed by other competent physicians.
“The recovery of these children has nothing to do with their education. They wouldn’t have the capacity to learn without the DAN protocol. Remember? Autism is a developmental disorder, not a lack of education.”
———–
I can’t believe that anyone would believe that their child didn’t have the capacity to learn or that their capacity to learn was dependent on some diet or oxygen therapy! Our son was practically non-verbal at 33 months, and speaking in 2-3 word sentences at 39 months. Not due to the DAN protocol, not due to his ABA therapy (which started more or less concurrently with the talking), but because that’s where his developmental timeline was. Having a developmental disorder doesn’t mean that developmental progress doesn’t occur- sometimes it’s just delayed.
Regan
Jun 14, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Storkdok,
Was that the Ramirez case in Riverside? (that one rang a bell because it was, well, extremely weird, got a ton of press, and because our family has Riverside ties). I thought on that one, the proposed culprit was DMSO.
Gloria Ramirez, 31, at Riverside General Hospital, Feb 19-20, 1994
New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/6e95hy
Regan, I was out of town for a few days and I just saw your question. Yes, it was the Gloria Ramirez case. She was my father’s patient (I grew up in Loma Linda), he was a gyn oncologist. My brother, who was also a resident in OB/GYN at the same time with me, as in the hospital when it happened, along with my father. DMSO, a supposedly “safe chelator”, was what she took from a clinic in Tijuana. My father said a lot of people would go down to those “clinics” for these alternative therapies, with many disastrous results, this was, of course, the worst and weirdest. DMSO was the chelator of choice at that time, they claimed it would cure cancer, heart disease, almost anything.
If you like reading about quackery, I just finished a great book, Charlatan, by Pope Brock, about the biggest quack in the early 1900’s. Here is a book review http://www.nytimes (dot) com/2008/01/31/books/31maslin.html
It has a lot of interesting history, and many parallels to the quackery of today.
This may be a repeat. The last time I put a link to the NY times book review here my comment was never published.
Regan
Jun 14, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Storkdok,
Was that the Ramirez case in Riverside? (that one rang a bell because it was, well, extremely weird, got a ton of press, and because our family has Riverside ties). I thought on that one, the proposed culprit was DMSO.
Gloria Ramirez, 31, at Riverside General Hospital, Feb 19-20, 1994
New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/6e95hy
Regan, I was out of town for a few days and I just saw your question. Yes, it was the Gloria Ramirez case. She was my father’s patient (I grew up in Loma Linda), he was a gyn oncologist. My brother, who was also a resident in OB/GYN at the same time with me, as in the hospital when it happened, along with my father. DMSO, a supposedly “safe chelator”, was what she took from a clinic in Tijuana. My father said a lot of people would go down to those “clinics” for these alternative therapies, with many disastrous results, this was, of course, the worst and weirdest. DMSO was the chelator of choice at that time, they claimed it would cure cancer, heart disease, almost anything.
If you like reading about quackery, I just finished a great book, Charlatan, by Pope Brock, about the biggest quack in the early 1900’s. Here is a book review http://www (dot) nytimes (dot) com/2008/01/31/books/31maslin.html
It has a lot of interesting history, and many parallels to the quackery of today.
You folks are sad.
The best response to the “developmentally delayed” comment I made was that “it can still happen, just delayed”
Uhhm, what do you think is the purpose of the DAN treatments? No, you can’t always teach someone, no matter how long you wait. Although with some high functioning kids, YES, they will learn without biomed, in time.
Hooray for the obvious.
Now, storkquack.
Why don’t you grab your own shoulders and pull? Either you’re just protecting your own pathetic profession, or you really are that stupid.
We all know about the dangerous chelation methods that have been tried. Believe it or not, some folks have tried to light a barbecue with gasoline too.
It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with barbecuing, it just means that’s what happens when you pair an idiot with the means to do damage.
No surprise.
It’s kind of like when your state medical board handed you your license.
I have witnessed, WITH MY OWN DAMN EYES, a child recover from autism. I have witnessed children start talking, from nothing, to full sentences, within two months of starting some biomed regimens.
No my white-coated jackass, it wasn’t under the “watchful eyes” of the mainstream medical establishment. That’s because you fools have already written off DAN, and refuse to pay attention.
That fact that the DAN methods are not documented well by folks like you, is because of folks like YOU! It has nothing to do with the treatments, or the documented progress.
It has to do with good old fashioned ass-covering, and that’s all it has to do with. Once the mainstream admits the alternative treatments work, publicly, that pretty much says their profession is a sham. You folks are nothing more than shills for the pharmaceutical industry, and you damn well know it. Little by little, day by day, the world is finding that out. I would start thinking about a new profession before it’s too late. Pharmaceutical sales maybe? You certainly have the experience for it.
Now be a good little quack and go play on the highway or something.
Storkdok,
Thanks for the recommendation on the book; I’m looking for some new reading.
Small world. I have fond memories of Loma Linda, and visits to the campus.
Interesting comments on the DMSO. When I was first in So. Cal, almost every health food store, and in one notable case, a bait and ammo store displayed the proud letters “DMSO”. I thought it was some kind of special So. Cal code. I knew better by the time of the Ramirez incident, but very freaky and disasterous for everyone immediately involved.
Steve said “I have witnessed, WITH MY OWN DAMN EYES, a child recover from autism. I have witnessed children start talking, from nothing, to full sentences, within two months of starting some biomed regimens. ”
So have I!!! It was for a three turning four year old dysphasic child, and after about two months of good speech and language therapy.
Your anecdotes mean absolutely nothing.
I am absolutely stunned over the harsh remarks towards Kristina. Regardless of how you feel about the topic this is her blog..therefor she can believe whatever she want.
For the record, Dr. Payne…I find your comment that equals autism to brain damage extremely offensive.
For both you and Steve… where is all this substantial evidence to prove your point of views? You can say *I* know someone all you want, but why can you not produce verifiable evidence? And please, spare us a ‘Jenny’ reference.
Honestly this whole racket stinks of the same type of ‘cures’ Dr. Kellogg and Dr. Kinsey once produced. They had many followers as well.
I admire the intestinal fortitude of the replies, but it’s hard not to believe that the main point of certain comments is just to heap abuse on folks.
If I want to read insults, I’ll go to Oscar Wilde or Groucho Marx.
*Plonk*
We all know about the dangerous chelation methods that have been tried. Believe it or not, some folks have tried to light a barbecue with gasoline too.
It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with barbecuing, it just means that’s what happens when you pair an idiot with the means to do damage.
I read recently that excessive barbecuing can contribute to cancer.
Clearly, Steve, you’re very passionate about the DAN! protocol, but could you perhaps defend it without all the venom? Tossing around insults makes it pretty hard to take you seriously or to want to hear what you have to say.
Steve, I’m not sure if I can listen to your point of view.
Your delivery is too rude and disrespecting of autistic people.
I’d rather listen to folks like Dr. Chew who talk with compassion and warmth about autistic people instead of being vitriolic.
Which OT, is a rather good tasting word.
Regan,
I personally wouldn’t mind being insulted by someone like Mark Twain, with wit, intelligence, charm, and a twinkling eye! ;0)
Synesthesia, I don’t know if living with that is good or bad or both, but it sure does sound interesting.
Do mine eyes deceive me, or did the lovely, vivacious, congenial Steve just DAMN HIS OWN EYES???? That’s so…Elizabethan of him.
Wait, maybe he meant “HIS OWN DAN EYES. That would make more sense…which given the overall clarity of his comments wouldn’t be that hard to do. It’s so easy to tell people to play on the highway or call them quack or idiot, isn’t it? Yawn. Where is Mark Twain when you need him? Alas, I think the rumors of his death are no longer exaggerated.
It’s wonderful to have synesthesia.
I get drunk and happy off of music and I think I have good pitch.
I’ll have to train in music more though… all those nice musical shades.
Though associating people and abstract concepts with a scent is really weird, especially when it doesn’t exist.
Those unusual neural connections are fascinating. I’m jealous…my brain doesn’t do anything interesting like that at all.