(This post was written by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)
Kevin Champagne believes that there is a strong connection between mercury and his son's autism.
After reading my multiple comments to those that deny any connection between mercury and autism (here and here) -- where we debated about Dr. Buttar (to some, the leading doc for autistics...to others, a slimeball snake-oil salesman), absorption of TD-DMPS (the chelating agent developed by Dr. Buttar and AMT Pharmacy), the relevance of empirical evidence ("How can you argue against the fact that when autistic kids show mercury and other heavy metals leaving the body, their symptoms start to disappear?") -- Kevin felt compelled to email me the following story about his own son. It is posted here with his consent.
Patrick,
I just read your comments on Orac's blog. That was awesome! Thanks!Earlier this year I finally stopped telling my wife that our autistic son was "going to be fine". He was definitely not going to fine by doing what we were doing at that point. So I started going to autism conferences and to learn or get to the bottom of what's wrong with my son. I found it in May 2005 at AutismOne when I heard Dr. Buttar lecture. In over 2 years of researching autism, I have never heard anything that made more sense than Dr. Buttar's "Heavy Metal Toxicity" explanation for so-called autism.
When I came home from AutismOne the first thing I did was contact my son's DAN doctor in Boston and told them I want TD-DMPS! That DAN doctor told me he couldn't prescribe it because it's not FDA approved. The DAN doctor instead prescribed another "safer" chelator called TTFD in a transdermal form that I later found out was also not approved by the FDA when use in a transdermal form. This doctor obviously played politics with my son's choice of treatments because he was a DAN doctor and Dr. Buttar had a big falling out with DAN in October 2004. I then called Dr. Buttar's office and got an appointment for June 2006 ... June 2006???
I fired the DAN doctor and was an emotional wreck for weeks because I finally knew how to heal my son but I couldn't get the proper, and safe chelator to do it. Then one night I found CASD on the web and they are a not for profit organization that sponsors conferences for Dr. Buttar and we could attend and pay to have a private session with Dr. Buttar and become his patient.
Well, long story, short, I took the summer off from my job through The Family Medical Leave Act and we signed up and attended the next CASD conference in New Jersey in July of 2005 and became Dr. Buttar's patient and started my son's recovery. It's been 2 months on the TD-DMPS and we are already seeing a huge difference! [ed. note: The full protocol lasts 18 months.] Taking this summer off is the best thing that I could've ever done. With my wife and I both working fulltime, we would've never had time to find and later implement the proper protocol for our son.
Your multiple posts on Orac's blog were very uplifting and so was your father's "Autism - If Not Mercury, Then What?" posting.
Thanks, Kevin Champagne
Thank you Kevin for letting others read your own inspiring story!
To concede the anti-anti-mercury group's point (Orac, HCN, Prometheus, AutismDiva, Kevin Leitch, Anne, JP, i2bPacific, et al.), I too am certain that with time and money, there is much that could be learned to adequately explain why TD-DMPS is working to chelate/remove mercury and other heavy metals.
But as a logical human being, I have a very hard time explaining away stories like this. All the details are certainly going to be argued, but as my Dad says, if not mercury, then what?
Apparently, the mercury-defenders have a hard time with stories like these, so they choose to totally ignore them, or claim that they are lies. I have yet to see one of them ever concede the fact that there are autistic kids getting better, and the factor that appears most likely responsible for this is chelation.
Until they adequately deal with this argument (which is technically impossible since fact is fact -- kids are getting better by chelating mercury), then all other objections regarding Dr. Buttar's hourly rate, absorption rates of TD-DMPS, whether DMPS or DMSA are any good for mercury chelation, etc. are all totally inconsequential.
- Patrick Sullivan Jr.
RELATED UPDATE 9/28: Read about Scott Shoemaker's "Autistic" Son.
