 |
August 24, 2005
Bt DAN OLMSTED
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Something startling happened to an
autistic boy named "Donald T." 58 years ago at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis.
He got better -- a lot better.
That`s when Donald, the first person ever diagnosed with the disorder that now
afflicts a quarter-million U.S. children, was treated with gold salts after a
life-threatening attack of juvenile arthritis. The treatment at the renowned
orthopedic clinic was designed to combat his arthritis, but Donald`s autism
improved remarkably, too.
He became more social. His excitability and extreme nervousness cleared up. He
went on to college, where he was invited to join a fraternity; he became a bank
teller and, now retired, is an enthusiastic world traveler whose favorite city
is Istanbul. Most of the other early patients showed little or no improvement
and were institutionalized or lived in extremely sheltered settings.
We learned about this a couple of weeks ago from Donald`s brother, who we
interviewed in the small Mississippi town where the brothers grew up and still
live. (Donald has not responded to our request for an interview.)
Getting better is something parents of autistic children devoutly wish for them,
yet we found no record of the gold-salts treatment and its apparent effects in
studies of the first patients with autism. The Johns Hopkins University
psychiatrist who diagnosed Donald`s autism attributed the improvement instead to
a "wise, intuitive" farm couple with whom Donald was sent to live -- at his
suggestion.
But if medical treatment at age 12 made the difference, a couple of explanations
suggest themselves. In the last column we looked at how gold salts might work --
in theory -- by suppressing a harmful autoimmune reaction in the brains of
autistic children. That`s how they suppress juvenile arthritis in joints.
Another idea suggested by a number of readers is that the gold salts might be a
form of chelation, which draws heavy metals out of the body.
Chelation (key-LAY-shun) has been employed for half a century as a standard
treatment for lead poisoning. Its controversial use in autism stems from the
idea -- dismissed by medical groups and federal health authorities -- that the
disorder is mercury poisoning by another name, caused by a preservative that was
in childhood vaccines. (The first use of that preservative in vaccines appears
to be in 1931, the same year the first child eventually diagnosed with autism
was born. Donald was born in 1933.)
The rationale in Donald`s case is speculative but simple: Gold, No. 79 on the
Periodic Table of the Elements, has a proven affinity for Mercury, No. 80.
"As parents of an autistic child, we are very familiar with the benefits of
biomedical treatment for autism, and we have seen a meaningful change in our
son`s symptoms after treating him for the medical condition he actually has,
mercury toxicity," J.B. and Lisa Handley, founders of generationrescue.org,
wrote Age of Autism.
"It is no surprise that gold salts improved Donald T.`s `autism.` As gold miners
as far back as the Roman Empire would tell you, gold and mercury have a strong
binding affinity for each other, and the gold salts likely acted as a
rudimentary chelator to help Donald T. detoxify. (Mercury is used in gold mining
to separate small particles of gold from sand.)
"Luckily for parents, our knowledge of how to chelate mercury out of the body
has improved since Donald T. was a child, and today we have prescription
chelators with a strong binding affinity for mercury without some of the
potential negative side effects of gold," they said.
"With names like DMPS, DMSA and EDTA, these chelators are being used right now
to recover thousands of autistic children from their `autism` by pulling the
mercury and other toxic metals out of their body so our children can again lead
a normal life."
The Handleys say upwards of 5,000 autistic children have been treated with
chelation, up from 10 in 2000. An official of the National Institutes of Mental
Health told The New York Times last month "it isn`t responsible" to use
chelation for autism. No scientific studies have been published, and just one --
funded by parents -- is under way.
Another parent forwarded us a July 29 news release from the University of
Central Florida about what seems like an analogous process: removing mercury
from water using tiny pieces of gold.
"In the near future, this process can be used to create water filters and
reclaim contaminated water," the release said. "The first step to cleaning
polluted water is detecting it. (The new) method uses gold nanoparticles, each
about 2,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. First, a liquid
solution containing gold nanoparticles is mixed with a sample of the
possibly-contaminated water. Then, because mercury has such a strong affinity
for gold, any mercury in the water quickly binds with the gold."
Another parent wrote: "I nearly lost my dinner when I saw your article. I was
speaking last week with a neurochemist who was inquiring about chelation in
autism as a family member of two adult autistics. He specifically asked whether
gold had ever been tried since it has that property, of which I had previously
been unaware.
"That`s why your article totally stunned me. As with Patient Zero in the AIDS
epidemic, this patient zero is very informative."
We also heard from parents who noted that along with autism, autoimmune
conditions -- from juvenile diabetes to asthma to skin problems to celiac
disease to juvenile arthritis -- appear to have increased significantly over the
past few years.
"I have a son, age 21, with Asperger Syndrome, and a daughter, age 23, with
Still`s Disease, which is another name for the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
that you mentioned that this patient had," one parent wrote. "I have read in
many different places that there is a strong association of JRA/Still`s and
Autism Spectrum Disorders in the same families."
Many parents also tell us that their child`s autistic symptoms improve when
inflammation -- especially in the gastrointestinal tract -- is treated.
Are any of these clues to autism, and are they visible in other early patients
with autism? We`ll look at that in upcoming columns.
E-mail:
dolmsted@upi.com
|
|