November 4, 2005
MAKING KIDS PAY THE PRICE:
When quackery kills:
The tragic death of a five-year-old autistic boy in the USA following treatment with mercury chelation reveals the dangers of alternative therapies. (Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, 11/04/05, Spiked)
The tragic death of a five-year-old autistic boy in the USA this summer following mercury chelation - a treatment now being promoted by groups of parent activists on both sides of the Atlantic - reveals the dangers of alternative therapies.Abubakar Tariq Nadama lived with his family - of Nigerian origin - in Batheaston in Devon, England, until his mother took him to Portersville, Pennsylvania, where the Advanced Integrative Medicine Center offers to eliminate mercury from the body through the intravenous injection of the chelating agent EDTA. A growing number of campaigners believe that autism is the result of mercury toxicity, caused, at least in part, by the mercury-based preservative thiomersal (thimerosal in the USA) formerly used in childhood vaccines. Many parent activists claim that chelation therapy has produced dramatic improvements in their children. Shortly after his third course of treatment, Abubakar sustained a cardiac arrest and died.
In 2004, the US Institute of Medicine systematically examined - and rejected - claims that vaccines (MMR as well as those containing mercury) may cause autism. The US drug regulatory agency, the FDA, approves chelation therapy only for acute mercury poisoning: there is no scientific evidence of its benefits in autism - or any other condition - and little information about its risks.
Yet, despite the categorical dismissal of the mercury-autism theory by medical and scientific authorities, the anti-mercury campaign has continued to gather momentum.
PBS ran a pretty good series this week on global health threats, RX for Survival. At one point, after showing the massive logistical nightmare that WHO types had to overcome to vaccinate all the kids in an Indian village where polio had made a comeback, they cut to an island off of WA state where these hippy-dippy upper-middle-class white parents don't want to immunize their own kids because of nonsense like the autism scare. It made you embarrassed to be an American. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 4, 2005 10:37 AM
The Seattle area in Washington state frequently makes one embarrassed to be an American. It's become the number one competitor in the regard to the San Francisco metroplex.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at November 4, 2005 10:56 AMI understand there are also some islands off the cost of Cape Cod that are home to hippy-dippy richies who are trying to get everyone to believe in the autism scare.
Can being bi-coastal qualify as a mental disorder?
Posted by: John at November 4, 2005 11:22 AMThat must have been Vashon Island ... it's part of Seattle, but hard to get to (kind of like the island in the 1970 film, Wickerman.) And it's absolutely true, about the fear of vaccinations in this area (but more prevalent among people in their mid-fifties - that generation.)
Posted by: g at November 4, 2005 11:25 AMIt seems that every national news story that comes from this area is an embarrassment for those of us who live here. I have no data, but I suspect that Seattle has surpassed San Francisco as the nations liberal-experiment staging area.
Posted by: Patrick H at November 4, 2005 11:29 AMg,
I love the Vashon/Wickerman anology.
Hmmmm...has anyone seen Republican ex-Sheriff Dave Reichert lately?
Posted by: Patrick H at November 4, 2005 11:36 AMAs amatter of fact, no. But I'm not familiar with Wickerman so please elaborate.
As for Vashon , it's one of those places with no visible means of support. You just know that everyone who lives there depends on a income that was made by someone else years ago, a person now dead who worked hard while who living and raising a famility in horrible, unpleasant places like the San Fernando Valley or Cleveland or Trenton. That also applies to the San Juan Islands, nestled up against Canada, which is the most Leftwing county in the state.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at November 4, 2005 12:28 PMRaoul,
It's an early 70's movie. In The Wickerman a Scottish police officer (Edward Woodward) travels to a small island to search for a missing woman. When he arrives he finds that it is run by a paternalistic pagan (Christopher Lee). The islanders engage in all sorts of pagan rituals culminating in their May Day festival. Throughout the film, Woodward rails against their heathen ways as he is constantly lied to and manipulated by Lee and others. The police officer ends up less than happy. Watch it, it's worth the time.
I have no data, but I suspect that Seattle has surpassed San Francisco as the nations liberal-experiment staging area.
Nah. Seattle just banned lap-dances & the like. As OJ likes to point out, even Blue America is redder than Europe. And San Francisco.
Posted by: Timothy at November 4, 2005 1:27 PMI read that Boulder had an epidemic of pertussis because hippy parents wouldn' vaccinate their children. Sounds like it could be a self-limiting problem though. Too bad OJ doesn't believe in Darwinism.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at November 4, 2005 1:31 PMWho needs lap dances when there are plenty of massage parlors offering a "full body shampoo".
Posted by: Patrick H at November 4, 2005 1:54 PMThank you. I remember it now, seen it, too. You've reminded me how I'm sure it was the inspiration for the Burning Man looney tunes in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. (Did a geology visit around there before that circus became popular. It's a place that's ugly, even for Nevada, no matter how you look at it.)
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at November 4, 2005 2:31 PMMr. Ortega;
But it's a great place to launch big rockets. I, sadly, haven't been myself yet.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at November 4, 2005 4:08 PM