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Thursday, September 15, 2005A 5-year-old autistic boy died Tuesday in a Butler County doctor's office while undergoing an increasingly popular though controversial medical treatment touted by some as a cure for the lifelong neurological and developmental disorder. Abubakar Tariq Nadama died while receiving chelation therapy, an intravenous injection of a synthetic amino acid that latches onto heavy metals and is then passed in the urine. State police at Butler are investigating Nadama's death, which occurred at about 10:50 a.m. Tuesday in the office of Dr. Roy Eugene Kerry in Portersville. Authorities said Kerry's office reported that the child was receiving an IV treatment for lead poisoning when he went into cardiac arrest. The boy was being treated with EDTA, or ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use only after blood tests confirm acute heavy-metal poisoning. ...In the autism community, the use of chelation as a way to detoxify environmental contaminants in children has exploded since 2000 as more and more families have reported miraculous improvements and even cures. But skeptics in the community say they fear the procedure is at best risky and possibly lethal. Although lead poisoning can certainly cause neurological impairment, it does not follow that all cases of neurological impairment, such as autism, are caused by lead poisoning - or poisoning by other heavy metals, for that matter. Sadly, the family travelled all the way from England to have the therapy. While chelation therapy is often touted as safe, it isn't: Other observers have reported cases of hypocalcemia leading to cardiac arrhythmias and tetany; kidney damage; decreased blood clotting ability with abnormal bleeding; thrombophlebitis and embolism; hypoglycemia and insulin shock; severe vasculitis and autoimmune related hemolytic anemia, dermatitis with pruritus and generalized eczema; and extensive clumping of platelets in the blood of some patients with atherosclerosis and other chronic diseases. posted by Sydney on 9/15/2005 08:33:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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