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Sunday, June 4, 2006 Vol. 10

No. 96

BREAKING NEWS -

Autism Recovery Story on National TV

This Sunday evening, June 4th (7 PM - 9 PM est)

Dateline NBC has a 12 minute segment featuring Baxter Berle and

Shoemaker, two children on the road to recovery from autism. The segment

also includes information about the treatment research of Dr. .

http://www.scnm.edu/breakingNews.php

Dr. told people at the Autism One conference he saw the piece and

thinks it is fair.

This past year Dateline NBC reviewed SCNM’s chelation research study

with autistic children, conducted exclusively by the Southwest College Research

Institute at SCNM. It has been confirmed that the piece will air on Dateline

NBC on the evening of June 4th. Please check your local listings for the

correct time.

Those involved have been informed by the segment producer that the NBC

executives really listen to the letters and emails. After viewing, please

comment so they will consider airing future segments on this important topic at

dateline@....

Inside Dateline: The unorthodox practice of chelation

Producer: Could childhood vaccines have any link to autism?

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13104961/MSNBC.com

The unorthodox practice called chelation (andra 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 100,000 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 , 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 autis

tic, 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 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.

JUNE CALENDAR OF EVENTS IS OUT

http://www.sarnet.org/events

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 ' quest and chelation airs Dateline Sunday, 7

p.m.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13104961/

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Lenny Schafer, Editor edit@...

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