Well funded war on autism

Willamette, Oregon, newspaper article on one extremely well funded family's "chelation" treatment for their son. And the media push that their non-profit organization has funded.

The best parts of the article, are the quotes from Dr. Laidler and Kathleen Seidel.

Please go to the newspaper's website to read the whole article, there are photos and some extra facts in a narrow column to the left of the article.

Curing Jamie Handley

One Portland family pushes a fix for the autism "epidemic."

BY ANGELA VALDEZ

"... [Lisa Handley] feels hurt that so many people dismiss her beliefs. "To have to meet all these experts who say that you're crazy, that you're wrong, that you're desperate," she says, "it's really hard."

J.B. is more forceful. He has an intense presence, with loose locks of strawberry-blond hair and a jagged scar on his upper lip from getting cleated in a rugby match. When Lisa begins to talk about the science behind autism, he often interjects, saying, "I'll explain." Although he is open with the press, he is also hostile toward journalists who've taken a critical view of the biomedical movement, especially "two a-holes from The New York Times."

The Handleys say evidence that their cure is working can be seen in Jamie's behavior, although they admit an outsider might not see the difference.

"We've already got our proof," J.B. says. "A year ago, he was on Pluto."

Jamie's moods progress fluidly from joy to concentration to panic. He has full run of his parents' sprawling home, a hypoallergenic realm with wool carpets, insulation made from blue jeans and HEPA filters to clean the air.

One afternoon this summer, Jamie dragged his father by the finger to a mattress in the middle of the basement floor and, holding onto both of his hands, began jumping up and down, lofting higher and higher with each leap. The game was an autistic obsession. The blond boy sprang up again and again, never tiring, his face frozen in an expression of total joy.

Jamie eventually moved from the mattress to his train set, another obsession, and later to the table, where he covered reams of paper with spiraling circles, using his teeth to uncap each pen in the box until all the lids and pens lay on the floor where he cast them aside. All the while, he didn't speak a word.

Three months later, Jamie had learned to point at things he wanted and to wave goodbye. He still screamed shrilly, ran back and forth, and didn't speak in front of a reporter. His parents have augmented the biomedical regimen with other treatments—speech and occupational therapy and applied behavioral analysis, an intensive program that teaches autistic children to mimic "normal" behaviors, like waving goodbye.

While the Handleys still insist chelation is making their son better, they admit they don't have an easy answer for the death this August of 5-year-old Abubakar Tariq Nadama, whose parents had moved to the United States from England in search of a cure for autism.

Jim Laidler, a Portland anesthesiologist with two autistic sons, has a less equivocal opinion about Nadama's death. Although a medical examiner in Pennsylvania was unable to make a direct link between chelation and the death, Laidler says he believes the treatment killed the boy.

"It was terrible," Laidler says. "This is what I've been holding my breath hoping wouldn't happen."

Jim and his wife, Louise, also an anesthesiologist, once agreed with the Handleys about the cause of autism. After their two sons were diagnosed with autism in 1997, the Laidlers found hope in the promises of the biomedical movement.

Their pediatrician recommended the traditional route: speech therapy, early-intervention classes. "That didn't seem very satisfying," Jim says. "You want bells and sirens, you want big intervention." The Laidlers put their boys on a wheat-and dairy-free diet, bought supplements of B vitamins and zinc, and, later, tried chelation. Thinking the treatment was promising but potentially dangerous, Jim eventually wrote guidelines for its safe use.

"We started doing these things, and it was very tantalizing," Jim says. Especially when their sons made improvements. But when one of the boys lost new skills or failed to improve, he says, they were told that setbacks were part of the process.
...

It's not easy to take a stand against the mercury moms and dads, doing so frequently results in vicious verbal and written attacks, phone harassment and even e-mailed and telephoned death threats to anyone who dares say that the mercury parents are wrong. Recently the vile comments made by e-mail to Kevin Leitch regarding his autistic child caused him to change his personal policy of discussing him/her online. Dr. Laidler has received death threats, even threats against his family. Kathleen has had more vague threats made against her.

Apparently, according to some, free speech is not a right to be granted to people who oppose the believers in the mercury hypothesis.



Autism Diva
Right as rain