FDA warns companies that sell OTC chelators to remove unproven claims

Cue rage from the "autism is cause by vaccines" crowd (some of whom love pushing these things), as well as other crowds

Take that, snake oil salesmen. Die in a fire, please.

Awwww. I was hoping to have a long and successful career selling snake oil.

i got some Aqua Cura for you...

How the fuck does that cure autism?

It uses the power of Insane Troll Logic to cure autism!

Specifically, it assumes that that mercury in vaccines causes autism — something that, last I heard, has been pretty clearly disproven.

The presence of mercury in vaccines and not mercury causing problems is what was disproved I trust?

Metal detox. My boss does all sort of crap like that. He even drinks some special water that is... something, I forget how he put it. Not distilled, but purified so it's like super-water or whatever. (and it ain't helping him one bit, based off of how screwed up his health is - and how the frak do you get more purified than distilled..?)

Deboss: Unfortunately, a lot of vaccines do contain mercury, as the preservative thimerosal. That said, it takes quite a bit of mercury to cause neurological symptoms, and a few ml of vaccine isn't going to be enough.

Also, autism is complex and relies on subtle changes to brain structure, not the sort of widespread chaos a neurotoxin or heavy metal would cause.

pvtnum: I wouldn't be surprised if it's been blessed somehow, or has minerals in it that are supposedly magical.

edited 15th Oct '10 3:49:30 PM by lee4hmz

As it happens, I have a blind and autistic cousin who did show significant signs of improvement after receiving chelation treatment. Although the studies don't back it up, at this point no force on earth is going to convince his mother that the improvement wasn't caused by the chelation.

That's the problem. Anecdotal evidence and confirmation bias are particularly strong for parents of autistic kids who are grasping for any straws they possibly can.

You can get purified H20 where it's pretty much nothing else. Stuff is bad for you though.

I'm still waiting for them to finally start requiring trials for herbal remedies and such, placebos are one thing, but some junk being added to trendier foods now can really screw people up.

So basically all they are is a bunch of overpriced smarties.

God, I'm sad that people in the world are so stupid as to buy into this crap.

Well I suppose, what can you expect? They have a child who has autism, they'd pay and/or do anything to help their child out so that they can perform better in society. People will do and believe crazy things in the hopes of something working.

They're just working off the correlation != causation fallacy. Some random kid gets better after treatment x (after trying a million other things), they'll attribute to treatment x even if it had nothing to do with it.