The FDA Takes Action Against Quack Autism "Cure" Peddlers

The FDA announced on Friday 25 April 2014 that they have issued warnings to "companies" who have been making false, misleading and dangerous claims regarding some of the more heinous "autism cures".

April is National Autism Awareness Month, a fitting time to think about the growing need for concern and awareness about autism.
One thing that is important to know up front: There is no cure for autism. So, products or treatments claiming to “cure” autism do not work as claimed. The same is true of many products claiming to “treat” autism. Some may carry significant health risks.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plays an important role in warning these companies against making false or misleading claims.

Some of the "cures" that the FDA has warned about are:

• “Chelation Therapies.” These products claim to cleanse the body of toxic chemicals and heavy metals by binding to them and “removing” them from circulation. They come in a number of forms, including sprays, suppositories, capsules, liquid drops and clay baths. FDA-approved chelating agents are approved for specific uses, such as the treatment of lead poisoning and iron overload, and are available by prescription only. FDA-approved prescription chelation therapy products should only be used under medical supervision. Chelating important minerals needed by the body can lead to serious and life-threatening outcomes.

Chelation has quite a fan base over at the autism-hating pit also known as Age of Autism. Unfortunately for their children who have been subjected to this dangerous "treatment", the need for chelation is based upon bogus tests that use a chelator administered to the child, urine collected and then "tested".  These provoked challenge tests are not recognised as valid by any regulatory authority any where in the world. 

Research suggests that chelating in the absence of heavy metals can actually cause permanent neurological damage in children because the chelators will scavenge essential nutrients necessary for growth and development.  None of those peddling chelation for autism have any safety or efficacy data to support their claims.  Jenny McCarthy's Generation Rescue peddles chelation along with off-label prescription drug use to "recover" your autistic child.

• Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. This involves breathing oxygen in a pressurized chamber and has been cleared by FDA for certain medical uses, such as treating decompression sickness suffered by divers. It has not been cleared for autism, among other conditions.

TACA via autism crank Kenneth Stoller make very specific claims regarding Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) and "treating" autism. Forcing special needs children into HBOT chambers is not only cruel but has already resulted in the death of at least one child and his grandmother for another unapproved use of HBOT.  There are no valid data to support HBOT as an effective autism treatment although that doesn't stop the quacks from taking advantage of desperate parents.

• Miracle Mineral Solution. Also known as Miracle Mineral Supplement and MMS, this product becomes a potent chemical that‘s used as bleach when mixed according to package directions. FDA has received reports of consumers who say they experienced nausea, severe vomiting and life-threatening low blood pressure after drinking the MMS and citrus juice mixture.

This is perhaps one of the most horrifying and ludicrous autism "cures" and Kerri Rivera is at the forefront of this disgusting and abusive snake oil peddling.  Ms. Rivera has presented MMS/Chlorine Dioxide (CD) as an autism cure at the premier crankfest AutismOne since 2010 and will be there again this year claiming 128 children "recovered" by bleaching them. Ms. Rivera would have her followers believe that since chlorine dioxide isn't sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) that it isn't a bleach.  She is either too stupid, too evil or both to make this claim as "bleach" is a classification of chemical compounds, not a single one as Emily Willingham so aptly demonstrated.  

Users abusers of MMS/CD report nausea, vomiting, severe diarrhoea but Ms. Rivera blithely exclaims that "it's working".  Parents who force this on their autistic children also report and proudly supply pictures of their children's intestinal mucosa which is sloughing off to which Ms. Rivera claims that it's "parasites".  Ms. Rivera lives hides in Mexico but peddles her snake oil globally so is not immune from FDA action.

• Detoxifying Clay Baths. Added to bath water, these products claim to draw out chemical toxins, pollutants and heavy metals from the body, falsely offering “dramatic improvement” for autism symptoms.

A completely useless and potentially dangerous "autism treatment".  Clay baths are not regulated and can contain harmful contaminants, the very things that peddlers claim they are purging from the body.

• CocoKefir probiotics products. Product claims include being a “major key” to recovery from autism, but they are not proven safe and effective for this advertised use.

CocoKefir is a sponsor of AutismOne this year and although they have received at least one FDA warning letter, are still making claims that their products treat autism. Again, these products are considered supplements and are not regulated so may contain contaminants and other ingredients which are not listed.

I applaud this action by the FDA as special needs children are being subjected to dangerous, harmful and downright abusive "treatments" by dubious quacks and cranks.  Now if only the AMA and AAP will recognise these abusive "treatments" for what they are and disciplining their own physicians, perhaps autistic children may be spared from harms perpetrated by the very people who should be protecting them.

The View of Jenny McCarthy

Jenny McCarthy, well known to those following anti-vaccine issues, is vying for a full-time position on ABC's The View in light of departing hosts.  Ms. McCarthy should not be given a platform that can potentially legitimise her and garner a wider audience to spread her anti-vaccine propaganda as Phil Plait writes about.  But even more insidious than her anti-vaccine activities, which she has tried to back away from in an attempt to re-vamp her failing image, is her role as organiser, spokesperson and sponsor of AutismOne.

AutismOne is the crank conference for all manner of quack "cures", "treatments" and "causes" (namely vaccines) for autism spectrum disorders.  The speakers and nostrums being touted at AutismOne are nothing short of child abuse of special needs children.  I have compiled a short list of the most notable "doctors" who Ms. McCarthy signs on to present at AutismOne year after year:

Andrew Wakefield has been named by TIME magazine, one of the great science frauds.  Dr. Wakefield has been struck of the UK's General Medical Council (analogous to the U.S.'s American Medical Association) for over 40 counts of unethical behaviours regarding his treatment of special needs children and others. Dr. Wakefield has also committed fraud regarding his findings that autism was caused by the MMR vaccine by fabricating data.  These studies were subsequently retracted.

Arthur Krigsman is a gastroenterologist who supports Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent science regarding MMR and autism.  He has been disciplined in numerous states for his own unethical behaviour.

Anjum Usman is being sued along with Dr. Dan Rossignol by a parent of an autistic child for unethical medical treatment of his child with chelation.  Dr. Rossignol didn't even examine the child yet prescribed chelation based upon bogus tests performed by Dr. Usman.  The father charges that his child has suffered harm as a result.  Illinois regulators are also seeking charges against Dr. Usman for, "“unprofessional, unethical and/or dishonorable conduct.”

Jeffrey Bradstreet has been lambasted by OAP Special Masters for his unethical and unsubstantiated treatment of autistic children with dangerous and unproven therapies including chelation, HBOT and potent prescription medications. Dr. Bradstreet also recommends exorcism for the "treatment" of autism.  Additionally, Dr. Bradstreet recommends stem cell therapy which is a potentially dangerous and completely untested therapy for autism.  Dr. Bradstreet even recommends unscrupulous, unregulated off-shore clinics.  Dr. Bradstreet also recommends "fecal transplants" for autistic children which is every bit as dreadful as it sounds.  Dr. Bradstreet tries to medicalise the procedure and provides instructions for laypeople, however parents' "biomed" discussion boards convey do-it-yourself "fecal transplants" based upon Dr. Bradstreet's advice that don't involve "donor" testing and amount to having a family member defecate in a bucket, mix it with some water, put the faecal slurry in a pastry bag and force the contents into the rectum of the autistic child.

Dr. Mark Geier and his son David Geier regularly present at AutismOne conferences.  Dr. Mark Geier's medical licence has been either suspended or revoked in all thirteen states he was licensed.   Additional charges against Dr. Geier are pending.  David Geier has been charged with practising medicine without a license.  The reason that the Geier's have faced these charges is for using a powerful chemical-castration drug, Lupron in larger-than-adult-doses on autistic children and then chelating them.  This practise is extremely dangerous, cruel and has no medical basis whatsoever.  The Geier's also justify their use of Lupron to insurance companies by coding for "precocious puberty" even in teenage patients.  A fuller explanation of the Geier's gruesome experimentation on autistic children can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Geier and here: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-05-21/news/chi-autism-lupron-geiers-may21_1_vaccines-and-autism-mark-geier-autism-research

Mayer Eisenstein has also had actions brought against him for insurance fraud and several civil malpractice and fraud suits; this is just one of the doctors that work for Eisenstein.   Dr. Eisenstein proudly announces his anti-vaccine stance and is in business with the Geier's injecting autistic children with Lupron and chelating them.  Dr. Eisenstein is a regular fixture of AutismOne.

Kerri Rivera was a speaker at AutismOne this year and last year and presented her "cure" of autism with Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) which is an industrial bleach.  Ms. Rivera is not a doctor and promotes the use of MMS as an enema, drink and bath to "cure" autism ( http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/bleaching-away-what-ails-you/ ).  Jenny McCarthy through AutismOne gave this woman a stage to disseminate this repulsive "treatment" to parents of autistic children who are desperate and vulnerable.  MMS has been banned in numerous countries and the FDA has issued a warning against it.

I urge you to write to ABC here and/or please sign the Change.org petition to let ABC know just who they are courting for one of their shows.   For the sake of brevity, you can link to this post to highlight Ms. McCarthy's dissemination of abusive "treatments" of special needs children.

An Open Letter to the Biomeddlers

I'm not going to couch this in the platitude, "I think you love your children but..." because I don't think you do.  That's right, I said it...

You don't love your children.

Sure you say you do, you go on about your sacrifices, how much money you spend "recovering" your children but you love you more and you may love the idea of the child you think is "trapped" inside but you don't love the child there in front of you.  You also lie about "us neurodiversity folks" who you say are just about accepting our children and having no hope.  False and you know it because it's been explained many times over.  Neurodiversity is about accepting your child as challenged or differently-abled but also providing the tools and treatments necessary to allow them to fulfil their potential and help them negotiate a neurotypical world.  It is the opposite of hopeless; we just don't treat our children as "stolen, souless shells who'll suck the life's marrow out of family members". And even though you'll try to defend this paraphrase as referring to autism, you can't because that's precisely what you see when you look at your children.

And neurodiversity folks aren't jealous of your "aspirations" and your "hope" and "recovery".  On the contrary, some pity your lack of empathy, your denial and your desperation but others, like me don't have it within to pity you any longer and see you for the inhumane, ignorant child abusers you are.  I don't think love is complicated at all, sure there are different kinds of love or different ways to love but reducing a child to a gruesome science experiment in the name of "recovery" isn't love, determination perhaps but your warped rationalisation for what you do to your children will never be love.  This ain't love:

Thank you for writing this article! We have been using MMS now for 3 weeks and have only seen positive results. I have to say the amount of worms and junk coming out of my son now is really what has convinced me to stay the course. Who knew our kids were harboring such horrific parasites inside their little bodies. I am one of the Moms who for the past seven years has seen multiple DAN docs, attended conferences, had $1000's of dollars of tests done and spent 10 times that on supplements and treatments. I cannot count the hours spent reading books and researching. I am please to say that almost every single thing we tried has been helpful in some way. Things that worked, like Chelations, TMG and vitamin support help my son to speak in 2 word utterances when he was 5, before that it was guteral sounds, finally be toilet trained at the age of 6, and to go on to make continual and significant recovery. Yasko and Enhansa helped hhim take the next step and today he is in 3rd grade, reading at grade level and talking in full sentences all the time. Just learned to ride a bike, is swimming, and even has a few friends. Cured? Recovered? No, not fully, not yet, there is still a ways to go, but he went from very severe Autism to a moderately high level of functionality. The immense amount of progress made so far gives me hope and I will NEVER quit trying to help my child.

"Worms and junk"?  Bullshit!  Your child didn't have parasites or heavy metal toxicity or any other imagined diagnosis you came up with.  You're bleaching your child you ditchpig and any developmental advancement is coincidental and in spite of you, not because of you.  It's all about you isn't it?  And where the hell are the spouses in all of this?  I'm going to say husbands because this is primarily perpetrated by women.  Do you blithely join in holding your child down for numerous blood draws for bogus tests, the infamous one two punch of chemical castration and chelation and enemas? Or have capitulated to your wife the care abuse of your special needs children because she spends so much time "researching" and shuffling them off to DAN! quacks?  Whether you are actively participating or enabling, you're still responsible for the abuse of your children.

And if it's not bad enough you are abusing and exploiting your own children, Teresa Conrick another Age of Autism luminary exploits a teenage autist for her own gain.

As fate would have it, I was to meet another inspiring and heroic man, this one was only seventeen-years-old, yet his mission and message equaled the two I have just described.  While I was waiting to talk to a presenter, I watched this young man make his way over to a space near me, talking to a nearby mother, I heard his words - "I am recovering myself from Autism."  I looked quickly as he smiled at me and I reached out to shake his hand, while I tried to hide my tears.  "How", I asked him, "are you doing this on your own?" He began to tell me his name, "Nicholas Glenski", and that he and his Dad were up from Springfield, MO.  (That's he in the photo with AofA's Jake Crosby.) I was so impressed that I asked if we could talk together, maybe I could ask him some questions for a blog about Autism?  He smiled again and was very happy to oblige.  Saying he was freezing in the air conditioning, with his dad's permission, we sat outside on a strip of warm, narrow grass, with the sun blazing above.

Congratulations, now you have indoctrinated a young man into believing he is "vaccine-damaged" and needs "recovery".   I'll bet it just thrilled you to hear this young man's beliefs because it validates your own.  You are positively shameful, gathering at that quackfest AutismOne for what passes as camaraderie with your fellow biomeddlers to share your bullshit recovery stories (even though you've been "recovering" your kid for years now) and swap "diagnoses' and "treatments" like baking tips you foist upon your children.

I have certainly faltered as a parent; I'll even go so far as to admit that I've spanked my children a couple of times.  I didn't do it out of love; I was angry and where this has a parallel with what you are doing, you are angry with autism; you hate it. Deny as you might, you can't separate the autism from the child, it is part of them.  Your hatred for autism has obscured your humanity and consequently, true love for your children.  Another parallel I can draw from my own meagre experience is the self-loathing I felt afterward.  Oh you haven't gotten to this part yet because you think you are helping your children.  I felt awful for intentionally inflicting physical and emotional harm upon my children; I still feel awful even writing this. I would imagine that actually having the realisation of the harm, physically and emotionally, you are inflicting upon your children would send you to the darkest depths of despair.  If that's where you need to go to stop this insanity, then so be it.  Get the help you desperately need and learn to love your children.

Ban Miracle Mineral Supplement

Emily Willingham, the Science Editor of Thinking Person's Guide to Autism has started a petition on Change.org to end the use and distribution of Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS) as an autism treatment.  It sounds harmless but what MMS really is is an industrial strength bleach that is being given as drinks, baths and enemas to autistic children to "cure" them of the toxins, pathogens and parasites that they have (I hope the sarcasm was noted).

The issue has received much attention this past week as AutismOne, the quackfest of "autism treatments" featured Kerri Rivera who enthusiastically promotes MMS to be given to infants, children and adults to "treat" their autism even though the FDA released this warning almost two years ago.  In my opinion, anyone in attendance at that conference who did not speak out against this (and none did as far as I know) is guilty of promoting child abuse.  But then again, we are talking about a crowd who knows no depths when it comes to "curing" their "vaccine-damaged" children.  People who blithely announce they sprinkle an industrial chelator, OSR#1 on their children's breakfast foods or stem cells, chelation and an unimaginable aggregate of pharmaceuticals (for imaginary maladies), chelators, supplements and diets are not going to speak out against anyone who wants to give their autistic child a bleach enema.

There is a segment of the autism community who have utterly dehumanised their children and abuse them, their protestations of love aside.  This segment congregates at AutismOne for "support", back-patting and proliferating more and more outrageous "cures" and "treatments" for autism.  They need a wake-up call for what they are doing to their children and it's abuse.

Please sign the petition and share it with everyone you know.