wws@sfsup.UUCP (Bill Stoll) (10/19/86)
> > > > Any information about chelation therapy, pro and con, would > > be appreciated. ... > > > > In short, it plain doesn't work -- at all. And what does get > chelated, i.e., Iron and Calcium, one can generally ill afford to lose. > Last year I posted a long article on it. This year I'll summarize it > thusly: > It is worthless. It is potentially dangerous. It is expensive. > And, if the FDA has since acted, it is illegal (or soon will be.) > > Besides, there are currently some very good conventional and > proven methods of accomplishing the same thing. Consult a doctor. > > Craig Werner (MD/PhD '91) I've been trying to lure my father back to the net since he left it around 1/86 due to full schedules and defective Macintoshes. He is an advocate of chelation, so I knew that the above would get a response from him. He wrote a response, but as yet cannot reach the net and asked me to post it. If anyone wants to respond to him directly, I'd recommend U.S. mail -- but I'll see that he receives e-mail responses eventually (i.e., within a month). A tiny biographical sketch: he's been a practicing M.D for about 25 years. He's Board Certified (I guess that means you can put ABFP after his name). He practiced "traditional medicine" for about 15 years, then founded the Holistic Medical Centre in Lexington, KY. His greatest fun in life is that he can help/cure people that "traditional medicine" gives up on. His center does/teaches Iridology, LIVCELL Analysis, spiritual and psychological counselling, skilled relaxation, biofeedback, self-hypnosis, dentistry ("bioelectric function analysis") and chiropractic. Here's the response to Craig's posting: "I appreciate your keeping me up with the Net-Med Games. Since I'm not on the net yet, I thought I would share with you a perfect rejoinder to our friend Craig Werner. It seems that Craig, in the absence of any worthy opponent, has begun to believe in his Godlike infallability. He's always the one who insists on references for everything, yet when it comes to chelation, he speaks his own opinion in no uncertain terms but gives absolutely no references. [In fairness to Craig, neither my father nor myself saw/remember the "long article" that Craig posted last year which may have been well referenced.] "Of course, the reason he has no references is because there are none. There are no double-blind studies indicating that chelation is dangerous or that it doesn't work. Iron and calcium are all replaced by any chelation protocol that I know about. Of course, I'm sure he has never seen a chelation protocol. "The present action by the Food and Drug Administration has been to authorize a double-blind study on chelation for the treatment of peripheral vascular disease. This study will begin in the fall of 1986 and be completed by the summer of 1987. They have agreed to the double-blind protocol and objective measurements of progress on the basis of measured treadmill tests before, during, and after the chelation process. They will see how far people can walk without pain. "The Food and Drug Administration has agreed that, on the basis of the results of this study, they would change the labeling on EDTA to include chelation for peripheral vascular disease. You gotta know that studies for coronary disease, etc., will be coming very quickly now. "I've always enclosed a recent letter that we received from a surgeon that we use here in Lexington. The patient is a high school super- intendent from a nearby town who was given the choice of surgical replacement of his arteries or losing his legs. He chose the third option: chelation. He did very few of the additional things that we've asked him to do like skilled relaxation and dietary changes. "However, he did keep up his walking exercises on the school track. He therefore was able to measure very accurately how far he could walk before chelation and how far he can walk now. The interesting thing is, he just finished his chelation the week before he saw the surgeon. Presently he only has about ten percent of his final benefits. Most benefits from chelation do not occur until about three months after the full thirty chelations are finished. "Mr. Jones [not his real name] is a very intellectual guy though, and he wanted to be absolutely certain about his status (as far as his circulation is concerned) from a second opinion. [letter from the surgeon, Dr. Nighbert]: Dear Walt, Thank you for recommending me to Mr. Jones, whom you know very well. His point of question today was basically whether or not there is a procedure for relieving the blockage of his blood vessel, short of having an operation. He has improved markedly with your excellent guidance. His weigh loss, chelation, etc. has quadrupled the distance he can walk, although he still has cramping at about three hundred yards. He is not quite convinced enough to totally stop smoking, and he's down to about a half a pack a day, a point of discussion which we had also. From a symptomatic standpoint, he would definitely not be a surgical candidate anyway because he does not have impending tissue loss, rest pain, or night pain; or disability from occupation secondary to his claudication. [I omit the rest of the letter which discusses balloon angioplasty as an alternative to surgery.] Sincerely, Edwin J. Nighbert, M.D. "Dr. Nighbert is a very conventional surgeon. We have no holistic surgeons in Lexington. The surgical group that he is a part of is the oldest and most respected surgical group in Lexington. "Dr. Emmanual Cheraskin, who is a dentist as well as an M.D., has taken his retirement years to go around the country visiting chelating physicians to do research on their patient results. I'm sure you've heard of Dr. Cheraskin, but if you haven't, he was head of the Dental School in Alabama for about twenty-five years. One of the interesting facts that Dr. Cheraskin has published is that the risk of kidney damage that is always thrown up by the "know-nothings" actually is not only untrue but has the opposite effect. Because of this challenge by the "know-nothings", physicans who do chelation routinely do a creatinine clearance test which is a very sensitive measurement of renal function. They mainly did this for protection of the physician since kidney damage was _never_ seen. However, since there are now many thousands of these creatinine clearance tests done on many thousands of patients undergoing chelation, he has been able to show that in _all_ cases the reanal function actually improved. Of course, this only to be expected because of the specific mechanism of chelation action. "In short, Craig Werner is running rampant; the old truism of "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself" couldn't be more true here. "When I get back on the Net I'm sure you'll see _Mr._ Werner become a little more reasonable. Walt Stoll Holistic Medical Centre 1412 North Broadway Lexington, KY 40505 (606)233-4273 -- Bill Stoll ihnp4!attunix!wws