Most parents of young children with autism are constantly looking for answers, reasons and solutions for their child’s autism. A controversial treatment for autism is chelation therapy. Chelating agents are administered to children to remove any mercury in the blood, mercury that many parents believe is the cause or at least a contributing factor to autism. The thought is that removing the mercury from the child will improve the autistic symptoms.
While there are no proven studies for this treatment, many parents seek it out anyway, figuring that it won’t hurt to try. But in fact, I believe that it could hurt, and the Journal of the American Medical Association agrees with me. It published an article on just this topic last November.
First of all, the theory about mercury in vaccines leading to autism has been disproved, and in fact mercury was removed from almost all vaccines by 2001. The combination vaccine continued to have trace amounts of mercury. Whether you believe the studies or not, there is one study that you should pay attention to if you are considering chelation therapy.
The National Institutes of Health funded a five year study to examine chelation therapy and its affect on autism symptoms. The study was canceled, however, when rats used to study the effects of the therapy showed cognitive impairment. This was true for rats that had high levels of lead and those that had normal levels. The study also found that the rats displayed improved learning and attention, as well as arousal regulation.
The risk of permanent cognitive impairment is not worth any possible improvement in autism symptoms. Perhaps this data can be used to further understand the causes of autism, but parents shouldn’t consider administering chelation therapy to their child anytime soon. Autism research still has a long way to go.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here or subscribe to the blog using the subscription box on the right.
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