I bring this up because if these children hadn’t been in a study, but had gone into TEACCH, ABA, RID, chelation, GFCF, or prayer - the parents would have been left with the conviction that they got better because of the treatment.

Obviously, autism is different than developmental delay, but these kids were significantly language delayed, they weren’t just a little behind. I think at 15 months they were around 9 months, but I could be a little wrong on that. In order for these treatments to be properly tested, a control group of ASD and a control group of NTs need to be included. Otherwise, smoke and mirrors.

Maria, you can certainly e-mail me at comments at autismstreet dot org. I have seen most of the papers you cite which seem to suggest interestesting directions for future research but don’t necessarily constitute anything near conclusive proof at this point. I’d be happy to chat with you by e-mail. Please understand that I have a hectic schedule and am not primarily interested in speculation, maybes, or seems tos, but willing to discuss them as time permits.

The group addressed their concerns, and often they would begin to see that they were headed in the wrong direction. However, there were those who would not even consider that their child had a life long problem and that they had to prepare the child for that. Unfortunately, these people would either not return after a few meetings, or cause major confrontations within the group. One “pro-thimerosal causes autism and chelation is the answer” blogger reminds me of these people.

I have met a few of them years later. Some came to realize that they were on the wrong path and their kids turned out alright. One, though, told me that her son became a major drug user and OD’d. Another one visits her son upstate on visiting day at a maximum security facility.

The studies on Secretin are very telling. As I recall, in one of them close to 70% of parents remained interested in Secretin, even though the study clearly showed that Secretin was, at best, as effective as placebo.

Hi Joseph,

You know, it’s definitely not clear why such claims are made, but a few hypotheses come to mind:

A. Such claimants are so far imbedded into the process and cure culture, despite the absence of supporting science, that held beliefs, faith, and hope (however false) are so strong, that they truly “believe” it.

B. Such claimants are so far imbedded into the process and cure culture that to acknowledge a dead end is not an option.

C. Such claimants have no understanding of Post Hoc fallacy or don’t understand that autism is characterized by developmental delay, but does not mean developmental stasis (credit “not developmental stasis” to Prometheus).

D. Such claimants are on to something, and will produce scientific proof despite the prevalence of an overwhelming lack of evidence and the likelihood that it is quite improbable.

I’d like to see a study on the psychological etiology of these claims and beliefs.

Yeah, that certainly can’t help, but I also think the glaring absence of any real scientific evidence of kids with autism ‘cured’ by chelation doesn’t help either. Granted, not all parents look for scientific evidence before jumping on a treatment bandwagon of likely false hope, but the longer this goes on without real scientific proof (which certainly would have made mainstream media headlines), the more the proponents may have to try to present it as something else to engage new “believers”. So it seems kind of a two-pronged problem: guilt by association with “dangerous” and still pseudo-science as an autism treatment.