d865 wrote:http://www.aware4autism.org/Biomedical_Interventions.html

Interesting article by an M.D. who treats children with autism.

We are also concerned about heavy metal toxicity in our patients. Many people with chronic disorders have mercury, lead and other heavy metals accumulating in their body. Often, this is due to dysfunction of the detoxification pathways (see below). These metals can directly damage the cells of various organs, including the brain and nervous system, liver, kidneys and hormone glands. Testing for the presence of these metals is difficult, since often they are no longer circulating in the blood and are instead bound to the tissues and organs they are damaging. A blood test is significant if it shows the metals to be present, but a negative result could indicate that the metals have moved out of the blood stream and into the organs. Hair testing often misses the metals as well. Since hair is an excretory organ, people who do not properly eliminate metals will not have it excreted into the hair. We have found that a chelation challenge test is the best way to identify the presence of toxic metals. By comparing a baseline urine sample to a sample taken after the administration of a chelating agent which extracts heavy metals from the tissues, we can demonstrate 1) the presence of heavy metals in the body, 2) the body is not a screening the heavy metals on its own (assuming the baseline is normal), and 3) that the chelating agent works for that individual. We have protocols for oral, rectal, transdermal and IV chelating agents.

How does one determine the source of the metals? Vaccines, fish, water, air, pollution, mother's milk? If anyone's interested, here's a skeptical view of chelation therapy: http://www.chelationwatch.org/

Does anyone know of any evidence showing that chelation therapy is effective in treating autism? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy#Autism

Dr. Barrett who runs chelationwatch.org and other various similar sites is probably not a good source. A simple google search reveals that he's involved in many lawsuits. http://www.bolenreport.net A very powerful organization must be paying Barrett's legal fees.

Newberry wrote:

Does anyone know of any evidence showing that chelation therapy is effective in treating autism?

The first question to ask is "Who is getting positive clinical results in treating this disorder with these methodologies?". Are these doctors writing case studies? How many doctors are using these methodologies in treating this disorder? Is it possible to perform a meta-analysis of peer reviewed journals for similar cases? Are randomised controlled trials possible within a given experimental design? What data will be included and deemed quantifiable. An infinite amount of variables come into play. Perhaps the people getting the best results are simply on the cutting edge with few peers. Who would you take your kids to?

Anecdotal evidence: http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/lenny.pdf

I would contact these organizations for more information:
www.NationalAutismAssociation.org
www.SafeMinds.org
www.autism.com/ari

Dr. Barrett who runs chelationwatch.org and other various similar sites is probably not a good source. A simple google search reveals that he's involved in many lawsuits. http://www.bolenreport.net A very powerful organization must be paying Barrett's legal fees.

Please post evidence if you have any, of Barrett getting money from a powerful organization. Also, I'll gladly look at evidence for the efficacy of chelation therapy, or of vaccines causing autism. Anecdotal doesn't count.

Were there any facts on Dr. Barret's chelation therapy page that you dispute? I'm curious about specific point that you disagree with.

Stephen Barrett, in a court case in Oregon, was forced to testify about his income - since he had claimed he was damaged financially by the person he was suing. Barrett claimed he had only made $30,000 last year, and $24,000 the year before that. Really, he did.

So if Barrett made only a total of $54,000 over the last two years, how is he paying for eleven separate court actions in North America over the last few years? At a $100,000 outlay each, that's $1,100,000 in legal bills. Interesting...

http://www.relfe.com/quackbusters.html
http://www.bolenreport.net/feature_arti ... cle060.htm

I'm not disputing anything that Barrett says on the chelationwatch site because I'm not an expert on chelation, autism nor mercury and have no personal experience in treating these conditions. I just find it suspicious that he is so negative about non-pharmaceutical approaches. I'm just interested in people who are getting incredible clinical results on a consistent basis, whatever the condition or methodology may be.

I found the links on this page to be interesting: http://www.NationalAutismAssociation.org/

d865 wrote:

Stephen Barrett, in a court case in Oregon, was forced to testify about his income - since he had claimed he was damaged financially by the person he was suing. Barrett claimed he had only made $30,000 last year, and $24,000 the year before that. Really, he did.

So if Barrett made only a total of $54,000 over the last two years, how is he paying for eleven separate court actions in North America over the last few years? At a $100,000 outlay each, that's $1,100,000 in legal bills. Interesting...

http://www.relfe.com/quackbusters.html
http://www.bolenreport.net/feature_arti ... cle060.htm

I'm not disputing anything that Barrett says on the chelationwatch site because I'm not an expert on chelation, autism nor mercury and have no personal experience in treating these conditions. I just find it suspicious that he is so negative about non-pharmaceutical approaches. I'm just interested in people who are getting incredible clinical results on a consistent basis, whatever the condition or methodology may be.

I found the links on this page to be interesting: http://www.NationalAutismAssociation.org/

I doubt that he is negative about all non-pharmaceutical approaches; just ones that appear to be bogus. But I can't speak for him. I'm also interested in folks who are getting real results, regardless of methodology. I think we all want the same thing: treatments that are truly efficacious, and relatively safe (I say relatively, because often there is a tradeoff between safety and efficacy. Open heart surgery is very risky and has side effects, but it may be the only option for saving one's life.) And when it comes to kids especially, I think we all would agree that our kids should be safe and healthy. Do vaccines do more harm than good? Then of course we should stop their use. How would we know? Scientific evidence is the best way that I know of, to determine what's safe and what's effective medical treatment. Anecdotal evidence is a good starting point, but it beyond that it doesn't mean much.

There are drug makers who have a potential conflict of interest--profit. Same with those selling alternative therapies--it's in their interest to criticize pharmaceutical companies and champion their own products. So it's good to be skeptical across the board, and apply critical thinking to every source--not just Western/pharma/etc. I don't necessarily care where Dr. Barrett gets his money, unless someone can demonstrate that he is spreading bad information. If he's spouting lies and misinformation, please specify--I'm against that. I read the two links in the previous post, and I see that Barrett was involved in a lawsuit, but I still don't get it--what was it that he did specifically that makes him less than credible?

I'm interested in specifics and evidence. If you look at my first post on the first page of this thread, I said that I'd like to see evidence supporting the autism-thimerosal link. I'm still open to that. Or evidence showing that chelation therapy works. I'm not taking sides for ideological reasons. Whatever the best evidence shows, I'm there.

Is there any clinical evidence showing that chelation therapy works?

Is there any solid evidence that Barrett has lied or misled anyone? Or if any of the info on his sites is inaccurate? If so, I'd like to see it.

Defamation lawsuits--Wikipedia section of Stephen Barrett article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Ba ... n_lawsuits

Several libel suits have been filed by Barrett after he was criticized in a long series of email newsletters by Hulda Clark's employee, Patrick "Tim" Bolen, over his criticisms of Clark. Bolen claimed that Barrett had been "de-licensed," among other things. Barrett sued for libel[46] and Hulda Clark's publishing company New Century Press responded with a countersuit[47] against Barrett (as well as numerous members of a mailing list at Yahoo! Groups, a strong supporter of Clark) for at least 12 types of crimes and about 20 other civil wrongs, with the most serious being racketeering. After Barrett filed a complaint for damages[48] the countersuit was eventually withdrawn,[49] but was heavily reported by Bolen and others of Barrett's detractors long afterwards without mentioning the withdrawal.[50][51]

OK, in the second link in d865's last post, there's an article about Barrett v. Clark. Here's a bit of info on the Clark in question:

Barrett and Polevoy seem to have found an archrival in Hulda Clark, a woman who has written a book claiming that all cancers are caused by an intestinal fluke that can be removed with the help of herbal medicine and self-administered low-voltage shocks from a battery-operated "zapper" (both of which she is conveniently willing to sell you). Clark operates a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, and also sells her products and books over the Internet.

The above excerpt is from here:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/Print ... oid=282613

This is what I'm talking about--it's not only the medical establishment that has potential conflicts of interest--alternative practitioners do as well.

I'm sure there's plenty of evidence to support Clark's cancer theory and treatment, right?

Clark hired Bolen, the author of the article d865 linked to above, to do PR for her, according to the East Bay Express article I cited. So Bolen theoretically had an incentive to dis Barrett--he was getting paid.

My point is that almost everyone has a potential conflict of interest. And absolutely everyone is biased. So we need to look at all facts and evidence, and see what is most likely to be true, and try to put our own biases aside.

A couple more articles. From today's CNN:

Some parents believe that thimerosal, a preservative found in childhood vaccines that virtually every child gets, causes autism, because many children were diagnosed after they were vaccinated. But most medical experts increasingly doubt that theory, because even though the chemical has been removed from virtually all vaccines, the number of cases of autism is rising. Interactive: Understanding autism »

"You remove thimerosal from all but the flu vaccine, which isn't given to children under 6 months of age, and the incidence of autism only increases. So you just have piece of evidence after piece of evidence after piece of evidence that really disproves this notion," said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And today's NYT: "Inoculated Against Facts"

And yesterday's Denver Post:

Vaccinations do not cause autism.

Certainly, we are past due in dedicating the appropriate resources to look for the potential causes — and in identifying effective therapies — for the very serious condition of autism. But the March "Vaccine Court" decision, a single legal settlement involving an unfortunate child suffering from a rare heritable disorder, serves as an unnecessary distraction from this course.

The worst decision parents could make as a result of this isolated event would be to avoid immunizing their children against serious childhood disease, where the risks are real and proven.

We must put behind us the concern that there might be a link between vaccination and autism, and concentrate on finding the true causes and potential cures.

The recent legal decision has been miscast by vaccine opponents. In truth, this case was treated separately from other autism cases being evaluated by the federal court because the child involved has a rare mitochondrial disorder leading to an encephalopathy or neurological condition with autism-like symptoms, and thus is unrelated to the rest of the population. And, despite the findings of the court, there is no scientific evidence that this child's condition was affected by her receipt of recommended childhood vaccinations.

This was a legal decision, not one supported by scientific evidence.

ETA: More from the Courier-Journal article Bob linked to in the previous post:

The CDC also says that while children get more vaccines than in the past -- five in a day is no longer unusual -- thimerosal generally hasn't been used as a preservative in routine childhood vaccines since 2001. The exception is some flu vaccines, although more than 10 million doses of thimerosal-free vaccine were expected to be produced for this flu season – using prefilled syringes or vials that don't require preservatives.

Despite this change, a January study from California, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, concluded that there hasn't been any recent decrease in autism in that state.

"There are scores of studies in millions of children that show absolutely no link between any vaccines and autism. Yet this idea persists, and every once in a while this fire is fed fuel," said Gary Marshall, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. "The parents latch onto it because they're looking for a cause. …

"The public health emergency is that if parents don't vaccinate their children, it will not be long before we see these diseases raise their ugly heads again."

Hey, wasn't Gary Marshall the creator of Happy Days?

The last excerpt in my previous post was from an article that Rick called "fair."

Sort of like fluoride in the water...

PURITY OF ESSENCE

NY Times ran a letter this morning by Terry Poling, father of Hannah Poling, in response to the earlier hit piece by fact-distorting greedy shitbag pharmaceutical shill Paul Offit. ( The Polings received the first favorable settlement by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation board. )

nyt, 4-5-08 wrote:Vaccines, Autism and Our Daughter, Hannah

Re “Inoculated Against Facts,” by Paul A. Offit (Op-Ed, March 31):

Our daughter, Hannah, developed normally until receiving nine vaccines at once. She immediately developed a fever and encephalopathy, deteriorating into what was diagnosed, based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M. IV, as autism.

The federal government, not an “unusual court,” made the concession. The decision wasn’t “careless,” as your subheading called it. It was based on a thorough review of Hannah’s records by Health and Human Services doctors.

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program does rely on a “preponderance of evidence” standard, which Hannah’s case met. It doesn’t necessarily compensate families “quickly, generously and fairly.” We filed our claim six years ago, pain and suffering are capped at $250,000, and Hannah has yet to receive compensation.

Dr. Offit’s assertion that “even five vaccines at once would not place an unusually high burden on a child’s immune system” is theory and risky practice for a toddler’s developing brain. No one knows if Hannah’s mitochondrial dysfunction existed before receiving vaccines. Dr. Offit’s claim that Hannah had “already weakened cells” is unfounded.

We support a safe vaccination program against critical infectious diseases. We need straight facts, serious science and speedy answers on these important issues. Jon Poling

Terry Poling
Athens, Ga., April 3, 2008

For some reason, I bet Newberry knows for sure that Hannah Poling had autism before the barrage of vaccines. I bet he's positive she did.