Teach Effectively!

I’m late posting about this story, but it merits recounting. The Associated Press picked up a story reported 25 August 2005 by Karen Kane and Virginia Linn of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA, US) about a boy who died during administration of a controversial therapy for autism. It’s a sad one.

A 5-year-old autistic boy died Tuesday in a Butler County doctor’s office while undergoing an increasingly popular though controversial medical treatment touted by some as a cure for the lifelong neurological and developmental disorder.

Abubakar Tariq Nadama died while receiving chelation therapy, an intravenous injection of a synthetic amino acid that latches onto heavy metals and is then passed in the urine.

State police at Butler are investigating Nadama’s death, which occurred at about 10:50 a.m. Tuesday in the office of Dr. Roy Eugene Kerry in Portersville.

Authorities said Kerry’s office reported that the child was receiving an IV treatment for lead poisoning when he went into cardiac arrest.

There has not yet been a finding that the therapy caused the death.

The private group, GenerationRescue, that is touting chelation therapy as a cure (the group’s choice of word) for autism issued a statement reiterating its position. The group provides 31 links under the heading “Top Scientific Reports.” Most of them are not reports of studies, but testimony before Congress, Web sites, and public statements. A few are data-based articles in reputable journals, but they are exclusively about issues such as the incidence of autism, not the effects of chelation therapy. I didn’t spot any that showed behavioral changes following chelation therapy.

Here are links to addtional coverage:

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette original and follow-up stories;
• MSNBC story (AP);
• Advokids blog entry;
• BloggingBaby’s entry;
• The GenerationRescue statement,