Comments on: Pressure to Study Chelation?

By: Mary (MPJ)

Mary (MPJ) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:53:06 +0000

Jen already said it for me: a study that finds chelation does no good (and in fact does harm) isn’t going to change the minds of any of the chelation advocates. They’ll just say the study was biased or rigged. They don’t trust science already. That’s why they’ve bought into chelation in the first place.

By: bj

bj — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:47:53 +0000

I’m freaked by the role the scientists are playing in this. If Insel is really supporting or advocating for the study, that shows to me that our systems of expertise are broken. We’ve stepped into the minefield of testing any relationship just because someone out there believes it might exist, with no scientific justification. It’s scary.

And chelation is much worse than testing some other hypothesis with no link — like whether waving magic wands over the person’s toes helps, ’cause it’s dangerous.

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:13:23 +0000

Nodding in agreement to you all.

I think one reason my son is so happy is because of all the ‘love therapy’ he gets, not only from me, but also from close friends and his teachers. I realize he’s only 7 and no major bullying instances have ocurred at school, but Pete has a great sense of self-worth that I feel could not exist is he was being bombarded with messages that he’s not good enough the way he is.

Jen, I’m amazed that parents blame their kids when chelation doesn’t “work.” Ugh.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:14:23 +0000

What a sad state of affairs.

Adi, Brad gets one hour a week of baby sitting…er…play therapy. Actually, I like the play therapist a lot and Brad goes nuts (in a good way) when she comes, but it is pretty silly that the state would pay for it.

By: Marla

Marla — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:05:17 +0000

We have tried all kinds of stuff I don’t want to admit too. I am glad we moved beyond that phase. Positive interaction, time with M and lots of positive one on one education has given us the best results. Potions and lotions have never helped. Medications…yes..we have had success with a few. Chelation, I would not do it.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:23:12 +0000

Unfortunately I don’t think that a study would change those parents’ minds even if it proved absolutely that chelation was not only dangerous, but didn’t work. One of the mailing lists that I’m on (while extremely helpful in some ways), is full of DAN parents, and most of them are chelating their kids right now. Just this week two other parents decided to chelate because their kids weren’t “progressing” quickly enough. There are a few parents on the list who have said that they did chelation and it didn’t work, but they actually blamed the lack of “cure” on their children.

It’s extremely frustrating, because science doesn’t change anyone’s mind who already has that type of mindset…at least not in my experience. While it would be great to have a study that would either prove or disprove the theory, in the long run, I don’t think that it would do much good.

By: Adi

Adi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:15:00 +0000

The reason I love your blog is because your love therapy just shines through, all the time.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:07:21 +0000

A lot of love therapy going on here, I guess you could say……. I will admit to spending too many $$$ on bottles of goo (literally—this stuff) once. Flintstones chewables are preferable. (The man in the front office for the DAN! practitioner we were then seeing himself referred to this supplement as made in “vats.”)

By: Adi

Adi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:43:55 +0000

In fact… how many parents have talked about spending lots of money on any kind of treatment for autism that did not work? There is more psychology in autism treatments than anything else. For both parent and kid.

I have found that just the attention and care given to a child while submitting them to whatever treatment, has a good effect on the child (unless, of course, the treatment is in itself harsh and painful and physically or emotionally damaging). The hope and desperate want of the parents to see some improvement somehow transfers the confidence to the child they so desperately need, and somehow, voilá, they “get better”.

“Play therapy” has already been coined (how sad that even play must now be called a form of therapy, and charged for). I am waiting for “love therapy” and “hope therapy” and “give your child some confidence damnit therapy” to get onto the charge sheets.

And I would LOVE for some placebo treatments to be used in the chelation therapy research, if this horrible project ever gets approved. It would be wonderful to actually have proof of this phenomena.