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June
2, 2006
The unorthodox practice
called chelation (Alexandra Gleysteen, Dateline producer)
I may be a network news producer, but
first and foremost, I’m a mother. I only have one child, a boy born
in 1992. That’s just around the time the autism rates began to soar,
especially here in California where I live. Some say the new big
numbers—(one in 175 American children could be diagnosed this year
compared to the 1980’s when it was 1 in 10,000 kids)--simply reflect
the fact that more children are labeled autistic today because we
recognize the condition. But others argue there’s just more autism
around and that nobody knows why. All I know is that back when my
son was born, people started talking about this mysterious condition
called autism. And with boys being almost four times as likely to
be diagnosed as girls, I began to pay attention.
So why do a story 13 years later on an
obscure and unorthodox practice called “chelation”? Maybe it’s
because a lot of parents of autistic children have reported that
removing heavy metals from their children’s systems made their boy
or girl’s life a little bit better. Some parents claim their
daughter’s language improved or that they finally toilet trained
their son, or perhaps it was just a sense that “the fog” isolating
their child from the “real” world lifted a little bit. We heard
even more dramatic claims that chelation had helped “cure” children
of autism. Now, it may or may not be true, but you can understand
why parents would want to believe something good could happen for
their children. We learned early on in this story that the parents
of autistic children rarely give up.
Parents like Jim Adams, a professor of
chemistry at Arizona State University. I think that if I were an
autistic child, he’d be the kind of father I’d want to have. He
sees beyond convention, but uses reason, and he is totally devoted
to children with autism. In today’s vernacular, he’s got their back.
When Jim and his wife, Marie, learned
that their daughter Kim was autistic, their reaction was pretty
normal. They grieved when doctors predicted a depressing future for
their two year old, one without language, independence, friendship
or hope. But they quickly rallied and became incredible advocates
and activists for their autistic child.
One of the first things Jim did when he
got the news about Kim was to trade in the study of materials
engineering for the study of heavy metals and brain chemistry. Today
he’s considered an expert on how vitamins and minerals interact with
the brain, especially autistic brains. Marie and Jim have changed
almost every other aspect of everyday life as well: from how they
schedule their days (by putting Kim’s endless needs for tutoring,
therapy and treatment first), to how they clean their house (no
chemicals that could upset Kim’s sensitive system), to how they eat
(lots of protein and no wheat for Kim.)
Being around them while shooting this
story, you can tell that they don’t consider these changes in
lifestyle an obligation. It’s just another expression of their love
for a girl doctors wrote off years ago. And by the way, they’ve
proven those doctors wrong. While Kim’s future is still uncertain,
the fact is that at twelve, she still lives at home, communicates
with language, plays games with her older sister, rides a bus to
school and hugs you endlessly.
We met Jim and his family because of his latest endeavor. Along
with a doctor named Matt Boral from the Southwest School of
Naturopathic Medicine, Jim is on a quest. He wants to help answer a
really explosive issue in the world of autism research: Do heavy
metals, particularly mercury, play any part in causing autism—and/or
does removing mercury from the body improve an autistic child’s
health? Mercury is a known neuro-toxin and is found all around us,
especially in pollution. But there is enormous controversy
surrounding one particular source: childhood vaccines. Until it
began being phased out of infant vaccines a few years ago, most
childhood vaccines contained a preservative called thimerasol, which
is primarily mercury. Many parents believe that it was routine
vaccinations that helped precipitate their children’s autism.
That is not the position of government
agencies, including the CDC and NIH, nor major scientific
organizations, like the American Academy of Pediatrics. They
maintain science has clearly established that there is no link
between mercury from vaccines and autism. But somehow the question
never dies, in part because activist parents question the
government’s original research into the matter.
Jim Adams knows he’s stepping into what
so far has proven to be a political and medical minefield, but as a
scientist he says he’s just forging ahead. He’s conducting the
first double blind, placebo controlled study on chelation, in which
he’ll follow 80 autistic children to see if their health and
behavior improve once they’ve rid their bodies of heavy metals,
including mercury. If chelation helps them, the study will help chip
away at the mainstream scientific view that mercury isn’t related to
autism. If chelation doesn’t have any impact on them, Jim figures
he’s helped put the issue to rest. But in either case, he says he’ll
feel good knowing he’s advanced our understanding of autism.
Whether you are a parent of an autistic
child, or just a producer reporting on one, you can’t help but
admire people who’ve put aside anger or self-pity, and instead moved
on to lead lives of curiosity, purpose and dedication. Which
perhaps goes back to the original question about why 13 years later,
I find myself doing a story on chelation. Why wouldn’t I? We all
want the answers.
Dateline will follow up to see what
happens as the study concludes sometime in the winter of 2006.
Our report on Jim Adams' quest and
chelation airs Dateline Sunday, 7 p.m.
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