It’s a good thing that scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health recently scrapped testing a fringe autism treatment, called chelation, (key-lay-shun), after reviewing animal studies that suggest chelating agents can cause cognitive damage.
Chelation is a process that is sometimes used to treat lead poisoning and involves injecting chemicals into the bloodstream to cleanse the body of this heavy metal. The Food and Drug Administration approves this use but not to treat autism.
Supporters of chelation therapy believe that this therapy also will remove mercury, another heavy metal, which will then cause the symptoms of autism to lessen, or go away. These are also the same people who erroneously believe that there is a link between autism and vaccines.
In fact, chelation therapy has caused deaths in children with autism. The potent chemicals that are used in chelation therapy destroy other vital nutrients from the body that can dangerously disrupt its chemistry. YouTube removed a disturbing video uploaded by a mother of her child’s intravenous chelation therapy.
The danger that lies ahead is that parents will act on their mistaken beliefs and pursue this dangerous and unorthodox treatment to purge their children of mercury, rather than undertaking the long struggle necessary to teach their children to talk, interact and find their place in the world.
Autism, like few other neurological childhood afflications, can often be addressed with therapies that redirect a child's course of development. Treatment is laborious, expensive, frustrating and slow. The results are not guaranteed, but the methods do have scientific validation behind them.
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