Portersville, PA - Chelation therapy, still believed by some to be a nontraditional treatment for coronary artery disease, is now being blamed for the death of a five-year-old boy with autism [1]. According to media reports, Abubakar Tariq Nadama went into cardiac arrest and died earlier this week immediately after undergoing chelation treatment, a strategy his parents had hoped could help or cure his autism.

"If I were a parent considering it, I would probably stop considering it. There is no clear evidence that you can make kids better with this," Dr Gervasio A Lamas (Mount Sinai Medical Center-Miami Heart Institute, Miami Beach, FL) is quoted by Associated Press(AP) writer Jennifer C Yates. Lamas is the primary investigator on the five-year, $30-million-dollar, NIH-sponsored Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT), enrolling more than 2300 patients at more than 100 US research sites.

An unproven cause of autism is thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative once used in vaccines given during childhood. Advocates of chelation believe the therapy, which uses agents such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) that bind to metals, allowing them to be secreted in the urine, may help autism patients by ridding their systems of mercury. As the AP notes, the San Diego-based Autism Research Institute issued a position paper in 2001 claiming that 73% of over 23 000 parents surveyed said mercury detoxification helped their children.

Nadama's parents had taken their son to the Advanced Integrative Medicine Center (AIMC) in Portersville, northwest of Pittsburgh, where he had undergone his third chelation treatment. Contacted by heartwire, AIMC refused to comment on the boy's death. Autopsy results will likely take at least a month, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review quotes the coroner's office.

Quoted in the AP report, Dr Cynthia Johnson, director of the Autism Center at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said, "I tell families frankly that I don't see [chelation] as benign, and it's really very scary to me."

EDTA is FDA-approved for the treatment of heavy-metal poisoning, but possible risks include kidney and liver impairment, hypersensitivity reactions, arrhythmia, thrombus, and congestive heart failure.

Current American Heart Association guidelines on chelation therapy state clearly that the treatment is not a proven therapy for coronary heart disease. In 2002, the National Council Against Health Fraud issued a policy statement asserting that "chelation therapy of autistic children should be considered child abuse."