Heckenlively’s Data
January 5, 2009 by Do'C 
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- By Prometheus and Do’C
In the last week of December, Orac weighed in on what is probably a pretty disturbing (to some) post over at AoA. The post, by AoA’s legal editor, Kent Heckenlively, chronicles the apparently uncritical seeking of several dubious autism treatments (chelation, stem cell therapy, and alternative energy pathway activation) over the past few years. In the post, “I Officially Join the Mercury Militia“, Heckenlively claims:
“But now I finally have some proof that my daughter is mercury poisoned. And I can proudly declare myself a card-carrying member of the mercury militia.”
Prometheus and Do’C have teamed up this week to take a little bit of a closer look at Heckenlively’s ”proof” (available online). We’ll start by looking at the data, but we also intend to ask what we think are some important questions along the way, and we’ll introduce some alternatives for consideration too. Does Heckenlively’s data prove (as he asserts) mercury poisoning? Let’s try to find out.
We’re not sure Mr. Heckenlively’s membership in the “Mercury Militia” was ever really doubted by anyone other than himself, but in regard to the “proof” he mentions, Mr. Heckenlively was, in fact, kind enough to post the data from all the tests “he ran” at Doctors Data, in graphical form. Here’s a little background.
“It may seem strange that six years after I started in the bio-medical world, beginning with the gluten/casein free diet for my daughter, and encompassing just about every other known treatment, that I’d questioned whether mercury played any role in her problems.”
“The reason was I simply didn’t have any good proof of high mercury levels in her, despite more than three years of chelation, and forty-two UTM tests from Doctors Data. …”
“…So I ran her forty-third UTM test (each test costs $110, so for all the tests over the years we’re talking about $4,730 that has walked out the door) to see what came back. Previously, her high for mercury was 8, and most of the time they were less than 1. The doctor’s office e-mailed me the results immediately after seeing them. Her mercury level was 23 (reference range 5) (click here). I had previously observed that the range for recovery of kids seemed to be about 15-20. We were finally in the recovery range. I’ve included her test result, as well as the graphs which show her excretion of metals over those other forty-two tests. The mercury graph is on page 9 (click here).”
We just had a look at the data. Does it prove mercury poisoning? That hardly seems to be the case.
Here’s a graph of the data from the 43 tests over the past several years.
While it may seem interesting to some that the 43rd, and most recent test, shows what looks like a very high mercury level, the critically-thinking among you are likely to ask, “since the mercury level is expressed as ratio to creatinine, is the mercury actually high, or is it that the creatinine is really low?”. And that would be a very good question. The creatinine level from test number 43 was 10mg/dL (with the reference range reported by Doctors Data as 25-180 mg/dL). That’s right. It’s not even within the reference range - by a long shot.
Why is the creatinine concentration such an issue? Well, part of the problem is that a very low creatinine concentration (whether it is due to dilute urine or lab error), will artificially elevate the apparent mercury excretion when it is expressed as micrograms (mcg) mercury (Hg) per gram of creatinine. This leads us to another question: why do labs like DDI use the urinary creatinine in the first place? Most clinical laboratories don’t.
The reason is that the “gold standard” for urine mercury is the 24-hour urine mercury excretion. This is a much more useful and reliable number than “spot” urine mercury concentration (for reasons we’ll discuss later). However, getting a 24-hour urine collection isn’t always easy, even from a “cooperative” adult, let alone an autistic child. For that reason, all clinical labs also do “spot” urine mercury tests. These are not as reliable, but they are a good screening test to determine who needs to go through the effort of getting a full 24-hour collection. Because they are being used as screening tests, the reference range upper limit is set lower on the “spot” test (<10 mcg/L) than on the 24-hour urine mercury (<15 mcg/L).
In order to come up with a test result that is similar to the “gold standard” of a 24 urine collection from a “spot” or random urine collection, some of the direct-to-consumer labs attempt to “normalize” the “spot” urine mercury concentration with the urine creatinine. The rationale, most likely, is that creatinine is continuously excreted at a fairly constant rate, so urine creatinine concentration can be a good measure of how dilute or concentrated the urine is. It sounds good, but this also has some serious limitations.
The reason reputable clinical labs don’t try to “correct” urine mercury concentrations with urine creatinine concentration is that the two compounds have very different excretion patterns. Creatinine is produced continuously by the muscle tissue at pretty much the same rate (barring any muscle injury) and it is not protein bound, so it is excreted as it is made (as long as kidney function is adequate).
Creatinine, because it rapidly equilibrates between the tissue (muscle) and blood, has a “one-compartment” model of distribution. Mercury, however, is extensively bound to proteins (and other sulfhydryl-containing compounds), and so has a slow equilibration between the tissue-bound and blood fractions, giving it a two-compartment (or possibly three-compartment) model of distribution. [1]
While urine creatinine concentration can be used to “normalize” the production/excretion of compounds that rapidly equilibrate between tissue and blood (e.g. catecholamine metabolites), it cannot reliably “normalize” the excretion of substances (like mercury) that equilibrate slowly. For that reason, “normalizing” urine mercury concentration to the urine creatinine concentration is not necessarily accurate – especially when the urine creatinine concentration is extremely high or extremely low (as it was in the 43rd test).
This doesn’t even take in to account that autistic individuals may be very likely to have urinary creatinine differences [2] that make interpretation of individual spot collection-based test results expressed as a ratio to creatinine difficult at best:
“a significant decrease in urinary creatinine concentration was found in the PDD group compared to controls using a Mann–Whitney two-tailed ranks test”
“Issues regarding the use of single urine creatinine measurements and associated confounding variables are discussed in light of the findings, together with recommendations to use other internal or external standards for the quantification of urinary compounds in PDD research”
Thanks to Mr. Heckenlively, and because we also have the data for creatinine, we can calculate the actual urine mercury concentrations over the entire set of collections (not just the ratio to creatinine) - and there are well-accepted reference ranges for this.
Here’s what the data show:
[ * http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/path_handbook/handbook/test1299.html]
When we look at urine mercury concentration without trying to “normalize” it, all of the values are well below the applicable reference range. Note: the reference range for 24-hour urine mercury (as opposed to a spot collection is actually <15 mcg/L). The most recent urine mercury concentration isn’t even the highest (the highest was on May 7th, 2006).
Mr. Heckenlively’s statement:
“But now I finally have some proof that my daughter is mercury poisoned.”
is not supported by the data - data he provided. The data actually indicate that his daughter is most likely not mercury poisoned.
There are some alternative explanations that Mr. Heckenlively may do well to consider. One, is that this is an anomalous value resulting from a predictable error due to “normalizing” the urine mercury concentration to the urine creatinine, as discussed above.
Another (more ominous) possibility, is that there was a recent mercury exposure. Perhaps there have been changes in diet, or possibly even mercury-contaminated “supplements” (or natural/herbal/”alternative” medicines) have been involved?
If Mr. Heckenlively believes that he is finally seeing the excretion of the mercury that may have been received in childhood vaccines, perhaps the following exercise will be informative:
How much mercury has been excreted during the period of time encompassing these tests?
Even if we assume a 25th percentile in weight, body weight at the beginning of the test series would have been about 20 kg, and weight at the end would have been approximately 29 kg. During this age range, the growth charts show fairly linear growth, so an average weight of 24 kg is acceptable for calculations.
Pediatric minimal urine production (in the absence of kidney dysfunction) is around 1 ml/kg/hr; the first urine collection was on the 22nd of August, 2005, and the last was on the 9th of December, 2008. That is a period of 1205 days or 28,920 hours.
Given the average weight, the pediatric urine production, and the number of hours from first test to last, at least 694 liters of urine (it was most likely more) should have been produced.
The mean (average) urine mercury concentration was 0.98 mcg/L; the median value (less susceptible to skewing from large values) was 0.85 mcg/L. Using the median concentration, urine mercury excretion in just the three and a half years of the tests was:
590 micrograms
The “worst-case” mercury load from childhood vaccines would have been 250 mcg or so. This means that in the last three and a half years, the documented excretion is an amount greater than twice the amount of mercury than could ever have been received in childhood vaccines.
This highlights a potential concern we raised earlier. Since the amount of mercury received in childhood vaccines has been excreted several times over before this latest “spike”, a more likely source of the mercury (if it’s not merely an anomalous result) would be something this child is being exposed to right now!
Of course, Mr. Heckenlively probably isn’t likely to see it that way. After all, if the mercury didn’t come from vaccines, his membership in the “Mercury Militia” wouldn’t have the same satisfying moral outrage. Worse yet, what if were to turn out that one of the “biomedical” therapies or “supplements” is actually the source of said mercury?
Or, what if it is nothing more than an artifact? This is especially likely if one of the “biomedical” treatments being received is chelation. Chelating agents artificially raise the urine mercury (and lead, cadmium, arsenic, antimony, etc.) levels. There are no post-chelation reference ranges for urine mercury, and if these tests followed chelation, the results are pretty much meaningless.
It will be interesting to see if Mr. Heckenlively remains a dedicated member of the “Mercury Militia” if the next urine mercury test comes back in line with the previous values. However, we suspect that nothing will shake his new-found faith.
[1] Additional explanation at http://pharmacyonline.creighton.edu/pha443/pdf/mammillary%20models.pdf
[2] Spot urinary creatinine excretion in pervasive developmental disorders.
Whiteley P, Waring R, Williams L, Klovrza L, Nolan F, Smith S, Farrow M, Dodou K, Lough WJ, Shattock P.
Pediatr Int. 2006 Jun;48(3):292-7.
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Comment by Steve D — 5 January, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
Thanks, folks. I couldn’t have said it better myself. No … really.
Comment by isles — 5 January, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
Spectacular piece of co-blogging.
The phrase “not even wrong” is floating in my head now. But more than anything I think I feel bad for Heckenlively. He’s been snookered as badly as anyone by these quacklabs in spite of probably thinking that being a science teacher qualifies him to understand these measurements.
Maybe he’ll read this and stop sending his kids’ college fund to Quacks-R-Us.
Comment by AutismNewsBeat — 6 January, 2009 @ 3:21 am
Outstanding post, guys. And thanks go out to Mr. Heckenlively for sharing his data.
Comment by Leila — 6 January, 2009 @ 8:58 am
What amazes me the most is that his post was published at AoA as if it worked as real evidence for the biomed theories, when in fact it just disproves them and shows how pathetic and delluded those people are by complete quacks. This blog and Orac’s did a great job dissecting Heckenlively’s post - it really symbolizes everything that’s wrong in the mercury camp.
Comment by _Arthur — 6 January, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
Strange, if it was straightforward “mercury poisoning”, we would expect the levels of mercury in the urine to start high and to go DOWN with time, no ?
Comment by Via E-mail — 6 January, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
Hi Do´C
Well, my comment on your last entry was lost therefore I repeat my question
The levels of 10 micrograms Hg per litre are from adult references, and no toxic reference values for children have been established. The urinary mercury levels may not accurately correlate with clinical symptoms because mercury might be present in higher concentration in different organs.
Now these are levels of non-provoked urine. 10 micrograms /L are reference values for Adults, not children- and for previously healthy adults, not autistic children with CMOs, In case 17 of Nuttal K. acrodinia is present with almost normal 12.6 ug/L in urine and the safe value is considered less than 1 microgram/l in urine AFTER 3 months on DMSA. (Report emphasizes that mercury can appear virtually normal in acrodynia. Although not needed for diagnosis, blood mercury analysis would have added supportive information.)
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2006 May;209(3):301-5.
Revised and new reference values for arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury in blood or urine of children: basis for validation of human biomonitoring data in environmental medicine.
Wilhelm M, Schulz C, Schwenk M.
Department of Hygiene, Social and Environmental Medicine, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
A new reference value of 15 microg/l for children was derived for arsenic in urine. The reference values for cadmium in whole blood (0.5 microg/l) and for cadmium in urine (0.5 microg/l) were confirmed. The following reference values were lowered: for lead in blood from 60 to 50 microg/l, for mercury in whole blood from 1.5 to 1.0 microg/l and for mercury in urine from 1.4 to 0.7 microg/l.
and there are many more problems with your post….
Ma Luján
Comment by Do'C — 6 January, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
A valid point. Mr. Heckenlively’s statement, “But now I finally have some proof that my daughter is mercury poisoned,” would seem an impossibility, wouldn’t it?
Another valid point. Irrelevant to autism, but valid nonetheless.
No major disagreement here. There reference range upper limit cited is for non-provoked urine. Hopefully, readers don’t miss this important piece of our post:
“There are no post-chelation reference ranges for urine mercury, and if these tests followed chelation, the results are pretty much meaningless.”
I happen to suspect that these tests following chelation is a strong possibility, given that Mr. Heckenlively also wrote the following:
“The reason was I simply didn’t have any good proof of high mercury levels in her, despite more than three years of chelation, and forty-two UTM tests from Doctors Data. …”
An average of .98 mcg/L doesn’t seem that far from the German kids to me, of course, if Heckenlively’s samples were post chelation, all bets are off.
Comment by _Arthur — 7 January, 2009 @ 8:31 am
Why do these bozos systematically eschew pre-chelation Hg tests ???
Comment by passionlessDrone — 7 January, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
Hi Doc and Prometheus -
Good stuff. I’m liking the creatinine values as an explanation here. By way of example, look at what was happening on the 8/6/2006 pull; spikes in several areas, and again very low creatinine.
- pD
Comment by María Luján — 7 January, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
Arthur
Insults apart. what information do you have to know who, when and if someone is “systematically eschew prechelation Hg tests”?
Comment by _Arthur — 7 January, 2009 @ 7:43 pm
Maria, at the Autism Omnibus, the Colten Snyder case, Colten’s mercury levels were taken only AFTER starting chelation, NOT before. Dr. Bradstreet argued that the mercury levels in chelated urine where “high”, but acknowledged there is no norm for Hg levels of a subject undergoing chelation.
From the top of my mind, the Petitioners’ expert established that Colten’s mercury levels were well within the norm, even if during a chelation treatment Hg urine levels are _expected_ to be higher.
Still from memory, it was not the first time that Bradstreet and his friends omit to measure urine (or blood) mercury levels BEFORE starting chelation.
They do take a hair sample mercury test, but their rationale is that if there is low mercury in the hair, chelation is needed, if there’s a high level of mercury in the hair, then chelation is need, and if there is any other level of mercury in the hair sample, chelation is still indicated.
Comment by María Luján — 8 January, 2009 @ 7:58 am
Arthur
First, IMO, the scientific questions are not going to be answered in court. What it was presented in the AO is the status of the controversy, not the solution to it. There were dogmatic position and there were challenged positions of a (potential) change of paradigm of the view about how heavy metal bioaccumulation is diagnosed, that are very much affected by the lack of knowledge.
Even more, when you read scientific literature on the topic, it is well stablished that
a-mercury in blood is present only in recent exposure, not after YEARS of exposure and it is not know the impact of Concomitant medical problems going on with exposure to know the relevance/significance of blood levels when no acute/chronic high exposure is present.
b-mercury in urine –previous to chelation and after a high dose of DMSA or other chelator- is being more and more challenged as a biomarker of bioaccumulation-now for acute/chronic high dose exposure is other point. If you are interested I may post a link about a discussion on these topics elsewhere.
Now, if mercury in blood in bioaccumulation is not useful to know about metabolic problems in management some doctors tell you that they are not useful –IF other situations are not addressed also. For example , protein management and vitamin/mineral/aminoacids status.
If we talk about
1-The value of the chelation challenge test- I agree that depending on the dose of the chelator it may be a) potentially dangerous due to redistribution problems and metabolic stress and b)misleading because if there is bioaccumulation and sequestering in tissues one dose of a chelator is not necessarily going to be useful. Even more the point is WHERE the toxic element is sequestered and IF this tissue is available to the chelator at the particular situation and IF the renal status is such that it is going to be shown in urine-using a chelator that potentially show the toxic element in urine.
2-The problems with Creatinine I agree that to normalize is problematic. This is why many ask for the values of creatinine when you perform urine analysis. In my country my doctor and I asked for the inclusion of the measurement of this value because the practice is the normalization- even for toxicologists. The problem is that toxicologists are trained in high dose acute or chronic classical poisoning of previously healthy children- a very few and mainly on lead- teens and adults. It is practically impossible to find about toxicologists trained in problems with management of toxic elements ( metabolic problems, biochemical problems and xenobiotics management problems) when neurologic problems are present and /or gastrointestinal and nutritional defficiencies detected are present (Se defficiency, glutathione defficiency, methylation/sulfuration problems etc).
Now, with this situation, as the mother of an autistic children what I see is a lot of controversy, many questions and no answers- from even top world experts in toxicology- especially related to science based toxicology impact of low dose exposure combined from different sources first 3 years of life- and NO reasons or knowledge of tools to have conclussions. And this is my point.
Comment by _Arthur — 8 January, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
For biomed kids that undergo chelation, it would be useful to have reliable measures of the Hg levels, before, during, and after the chelation treatment. If nothing else, it would tell us if the chelation is effective wrt the mercury. And, with a pre-chelation baseline long enough, we could get statistical data on the variability of the hg, or the Hg/creatinin ratios.
I would interpret the Heckenlively Hg data as being post-chelation samples; he would proably have told us the chelation treatment start and end dates, had the treatment taken place during the period covered.
Comment by María Luján — 8 January, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
Hi Arthur
I agree with you about that this is the most adequate and proper form to do it (checking before, during and after where adequate urine or FS).
However, I still say that the interpretation of the results is very much affected by controversy.
If you change the threshold for abnormal excretion for the chelation test- in micrograms per litre of urine- , the interpretation may be completely different. Again the threshold set at 10 micrograms per litre is for previously healthy ADULTS non -provoked; you set at 0,7 micrograms per litre- the threshold for healthy children non-provoked urine for Hg and what is the situation? The same argument that challenges the 10 micrograms /L challenges the 0,7 micrograms /L but the selection of the children´s German range it is more adequate in the inadequate therefore? the interpretation may be completely different.
The literature on the topic present some data when after 3 months in DMSa poisoned children have tests with less than 0,1 micrograms/L with DMSA- SO?However, never the values here presented are less than 0,1 micrograms/L?
And what about the daily exposure to Hg in these 3,5 years-and management of this daily exposure?Do you want to analyze this aspect- beyond particular cases?
However- and this is other aspect to be considered- doctors concerned on this topic generally look at other biomarkers (biochemical, metabolic, etc) beyond hair , urine, blood and FS analysis with children with CMPS with (potential) bioaccumulation.
Comment by _Arthur — 8 January, 2009 @ 5:45 pm
And, Maria, one can expect the Hg levels to go yo-yo if there are some mercury-rich food in their diet, like seafood.
Of course, I understand that parents that go as far as chelating their kid, have a strict, low mercury, diet.
Comment by María Luján — 8 January, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
Arthur
At least I went that far having proper confirmation considering mainstreamed medicine ( blood tests) of high levels of toxic elements.
In general, not only diet is carefully checked-organic food for example from non-contaminated sources -, also indoor air if it is possible, water supply- even if bottled checked water is used for drinking , Arsenic may be a problem for bathing for example depending on the geography, medicines avoided as much as possible except necessary to avoid liver or renal stress and of recognized sources evaluating properly risks and benefits and other sources also-such as care with ALL kinds of exposure- of course also source and kind of supplements used considering CMPs.
And more. This is why again I am going to mention the role of a very specialized doctor in the topic.
And of course sea food is avoided- under medical advice- considering mercury exposure.
This is why I do not think ( but it is dependent of the particular situation) that -in general a yo-yo effect- or peaks- could be assigned to additional external unnoticed or undetected contamination.
Comment by Do'C — 8 January, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
There are several. And, it’s possible they directly followed chelation (as in within 24 hours).
Comment by María Luján — 8 January, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
Hi Do´C
Thanks for the clarification. Therefore the variation is from less of 0,1 micrograms per litre to 4-4,3 micrograms per litre of urine?
Comment by Do'C — 8 January, 2009 @ 6:35 pm
María, the non-provoked, regional, age-specific, .7 mcg/L from Germany was a background reference value for likely exposure above background, nothing else.
What of the situation? With this data - nothing (”more than three years of chelation”).
Comment by María Luján — 8 January, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
Exactly, such as the 10 mcg/L; if you choose this I choose that
EXACTLY nothing can be concluded -or criticised because the meaning of the graph is not known for sure and depends on the interpretation, the threshold (unknown) and many many other aspects. That´s my point-again.
Comment by Do'C — 8 January, 2009 @ 9:52 pm
Bullshit! María - firm conclusions are fair game for criticism.
Please pay attention, this will only be repeated once.
From our post:
Remember, we’re talking about a conclusion drawn by someone who may be very likely to believe the whole autism=mercury poisoning based on symptomology.
Comment by María Luján — 9 January, 2009 @ 9:10 am
Bullshit! María - firm conclusions are fair game for criticism.
Come on, Do´C, is that necessary?
About fair game?
I have been around from September 2005, I have read almost everything that both sides of this controversy have posted since and I read the most I can.
Fair game??
Near 2.5 years ago -to say it in my language
” se cayó desde la cima del Everest y se rompió en 200000000 de pedacitos para no recuperarse nunca más”
My definition of fair game is different than yours about this.
Your place. Your rules. OK
Goodbye.
Comment by Do'C — 9 January, 2009 @ 10:03 am
Apparently it is. My definition (which is not necessarily personal or emotional) is nothing more than to say that an evidence-based scientific perspective is required. If conclusions are not supported by the presented evidence, criticism is warranted and an essential function of science. This is not my rule (although it often applies here), it’s the way scientific thought works.
Your numerous comments and e-mails about this post alone are essentially an enormous collection of “what ifs?”, and have not been presented with any relevance to autism that I can see.
“What ifs?” are important, but they eventually need evidence to support them if conclusions are to be based upon them.
If you’re tempted to respond yet again, please be specific to the post.
Comment by María Luján — 9 January, 2009 @ 10:09 am
I apologize
I am never going to bother you again with email comments that apparently are what ifs? for you.
Comment by Prometheus — 9 January, 2009 @ 10:33 am
Arthur comments:
Absolutely right!
Another issue that has received far too little attention is the issue of potential contamination. I’ve mentioned this before (and in the post above), but it bears repeating.
At least some of the demand for chelating agents is being met by suppliers of questionable quality. Since chelating agents can “pick up” and hold onto mercury, lead, arsenic etc. at any point, it is not unreasonable to be concerned that they might be contaminated during manufacture or processing.
For reputable (and federally inspected) manufacturers, this is not a serious concern, as they monitor their product for heavy metal contamination. However, if the product is not tested, the possibility of heavy metal contamination remains.
When I read the account of parents using DMSA and DMPS (and other chelating agents, like lipoic acid) from “grey” sources and how mercury is “pouring out” of their children, I can’t help but wonder if the parents are “pouring” mercury into their children along with the chelation and “supplements”.
Prometheus
Comment by _Arthur — 9 January, 2009 @ 11:06 am
Prometheus, but there are 2 sources of wide margins of errors in spot urine measurements, as practiced:
1) as explained by you and Doc, spot urine, even when “normalized” by creatinine ratio, seems to be a lousy Hg test.
2) lab quality. If one was to split an urine sample into 2 samples, and send both separately, and received different Hg values on each half of the sample, the Lab accuracy would be in doubt.
I understand doctors in hospitals and universities hold mail-order labs in very little esteem.
Comment by Joseph — 12 January, 2009 @ 6:11 pm
I think Maria is confused by Do’C’s reasoning. He said he wasn’t going to repeat it, but I will.
Maria usually comes up with a lot of speculation, and she could very well be right. We don’t know.
But this is irrelevant to Do’C’s post. Heckenlively said he had “proof” that his daughter was poisoned. Now, looking at the data, can you really say he has proof?
He didn’t say he might have proof, which would be sort of nonsensical to say anyway.
Does he or doesn’t he? Can you really say his claim that he has “proof” can’t be criticized? Why couldn’t it? It’s a statement of fact that can be evaluated, and we can all see it’s false.
Comment by Do'C — 12 January, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
Joseph, thanks for clarifying what I was apparently unable to.
María, for the record, I hope you will continue to comment here. Valid criticisms like pointing out that the toxicity screening reference range we used was for adults, are extremely relevant, and essential.
Comment by _Arthur — 17 January, 2009 @ 8:34 am
I want to chime in and commend Maria for the quality of her comments, which _are_ backed with data and references unlike, say, mine.
And much unlike the norm of the posters from the (biomed/denialist/antivax/mercury militia) viewpoint.
And, Mrs Lujan comments go beyond the mere cut-n-paste, she understands the matter she’s commenting about. She can still be wrong, but I wish there were more like her.
Comment by _Arthur — 14 May, 2009 @ 8:06 am
Orac has an update on more Heckenlively data.
After FOUR years of dutiful chelation, his daughter still scores “high” on aluminium and mercury “excretion”.
And no, she’s not “cured” yet, but “some” DAN doctors assure him that she’ll improve dramatically towards the “end” of the chelation.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/the_price_of_anti-vaccine_fanaticism_par.php