Jonah's Journey

the chelation cure

This morning Jonah threw a tantrum in school, as we were just going inside. He cried and screamed and tried to hit me, then he didn't want to go with his teacher. He hasn't done this since his first day of school in January. Lois (the head teacher) assured me he would be just fine, so I waved bye bye to him and left. I am going to ask for a meeting with her or the social worker at the school, and see if they can give me some tools, behavior modifications, whatever, so I can better deal with the tantrums and craziness.

Maybe we need to step up our efforts to get him to learn the PECS system, where he'd have a little notebook full of velcroed pictures he could pull out and hand to me, to indicate what he wants: book, milk, daddy.

This morning's edition of the Times Union has an article on the experimental, alternative chelation therapy for autistic kids. Of course it features a success story of a 6 year old girl who went from the deep dark depths of the autism into the light of normalcy. The theory is that autistic kids have a special sensitivity to mercury, and so when they are poisoned with it (presumably from vaccines), it creates a reaction that normal kids don't have. (I understood that mercury was removed from vaccines by the time Jonah got his first immunizations in the spring of 2002). So this non-FDA approved chelation cream removed these toxins from the body, thereby setting the child free of autism. It costs between $2,000 and $6,000 dollars a year and is not covered by insurance. The doctors quoted in the article (one of whom is Jonah's own developmental pediatrician, who I like very, very much) are reluctant to endorse this method, because, as Jonah's doc quotes, "done the wrong way, chelation can actually be very dangerous."

I don't believe autism is something where one method can help all kids on the autistic spectrum. I'm glad these people found something that's helping their kid, but Andy and I are not ready to jump on board something this experimental until it is proven both safe and effective. I'm not even convinced that the girl in the article was diagnosed with autism correctly in the first place.

















"Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried."
         ~ Mae West (1892 - 1980)

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