A June 4 segment of NBC's Dateline rehashes the unsupported assertion that autism is caused by mercury, and publicizes the use of chelation as an autism treatment. The proponents of this unorthodox treatment claim that it will remove mercury from the body and improve or cure the autism. They cite as a major source of body mercury the mercury-based preservatives that were used in vaccines.
Jim Adams, a scientist and the parent of a child with autism, is sympathetically interviewed, and states his feeling that mercury is indeed the culprit and that he is trying to get to the bottom of the problem and see if chelation works (although it did not help his child). But the fact remains that after all the hysteria of the last several years, after all the experiments, all the research, there has never been a connection established between autism and mercury or vaccination. Nor has chelation been shown to be an effective autism treatment. Moreover, chelation involves significant risk, even fatality, and its use as treatment for autism has no scientific support, only anecdotal reports (the program shows one of the anecdotes).
One of the "experts" cited is from a school of "naturopathic medicine," an unorthodox medical belief system that is largely pseudoscientific and riddled with quackery. Evidently, Alexandra Gleysteen didn't think this worth mentioning.
The "first double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of chelation" is now being conducted by Jim Adams and his naturopath friend Matt Boral. Well, it's about time. Scientific medical protocol demands that treatment be used after scientific proof is established, not before. A treatment used prior to proof is called an experiment. To experiment on patients, without informed consent, and charge them for it, is a good definition of quackery. Maybe Dateline should have mentioned this.
Perhaps Dateline might serve us better if they took the trouble to inquire into the financial motives of all these bearers of anecdotes. Are any of these activists looking to make money from this issue? Are any of them offering, for money, services, advice, treatments, or literature to the autistic community, vulnerable people desperate for help? Are any of them seeking research grants or expert witness fees? Are any of them involved in or considering litigation against the drug companies, hoping for junk-science verdicts from scientifically naïve judges and juries who have been bombarded with publicity on the issue? (Such litigation could deter drug companies from developing new vaccines, or even make them stop producing standard vaccines, putting us all at serious risk of major epidemics that the vaccines have prevented.)
The time has come to stop wasting research effort and money on these self-defeating dead ends and to put our resources to more promising uses. The time has come to stop abusing patients with unscientific treatments.
Dr. Marvin J. Schissel is a dentist and an advisor to the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com), the National Council Against Health Fraud, and the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).
See also: ACSH's pamphlet What's the Story: Childhood Immunizations
