Denial, Wishful Thinking And Chelation

There is no evidence of chelation curing autism.

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The field of alternative medicine is as wild and woolly as the old west.  There are all kinds of people doing all kinds of things.  Some are studied and tested, some are intuitive, and some seem to come from Uranus.

So it is no surprise that the FDA occasionally cracks down on some of the most flagrant offenders.

Please listen to someone with a lot of formal training and many years of experience in clinical trials and many treatment modalities — There are no miracle cures. If there really were, I think I could have a handle on them by now.

One hot button recently is autism.  And one of the biggest misconceptions is that it is just mercury poisoning.  Believe me (and a million other medical experts) – it is NOT.

There are plenty of people around who want to believe in the magic bullet. Somehow this goes hand-in-hand with believing that doctors and drug companies are hiding things that are wildly effective.

Truth, science, and the American way are effective. People are always devoted to things that will make them a lot of money.  They may even convince themselves that they are on the way to miracles. Old fashioned values like responsible experimentation, even responsible observation … the heck with it.

I will not expostulate. I see it all the time.  Some of my colleagues – and I mean trained and licensed MDs – seem to settle on one treatment and think it fixes everything.  I suspect it is because they are basically lazy and cynical, but that may not be fair.  But in my years of practice I’ve seen docs who give everybody thyroid hormone, others who firmly believe in vitamin D, the apostles of Prozac, and other things too bizarre for me to really believe.

Not that chelation is bad, nor is it without merit.  It does what it does. It sure pulls Mercury and Lead out of folks who are actually toxic with those metals.

Some of these patients present with treatment-resistant anxiety and depression.  It’s hard to characterize clinically what people look like when they need some heavy metal taken out of their bodies.

It has not yet seemed possible to me to nail down exactly from where heavy metals get into the body, “Ground water?”  Painting the living room with cheap stuff? Toys from China?

In every case where it has helped, in my practice, other things have helped, too. The sought-out result is curing the illness, not lowering the heavy metal titer of the body.

Yes, I am glad the FDA has done something. The important thing, I think, is for the patients (or the family, when they are calling the shots) to remember is to focus on the pathology they are wanting to cure and to stop looking for substances that may do little more change than some numbers on a lab test.

As for the therapy itself, chelation, I am in the middle.  I think there are some appropriate applications for it.  I do have a little trouble with ecstatic subjective reviews.  There is some good research, and I must admit I have not worked with or even heard of the companies mentioned in the article.

There is an organization who offers courses in alternative treatments for MD level physicians — the people generally recognized as the arbiters of chelation in these United States, as they seem to have been doing more of it and longer than any other folks.

My advice is not to look at the method of treatment only.  Look at the condition.  Look with objectivity and science. Don’t get carried away with a specific treatment because it seems mystical or wild or exciting. Seek the best solution for the specific problem. Use intellect instead of wishes, looking case by case. People do get better, and in various ways.