Alternative Biomedical Treatments

Unproven Treatments Are Not A Safe Option

Getting a diagnosis of autism for your child can be shocking and heartbreaking. Pediatricians advise parents that there is nothing that can be done to help their child, and that they have no hope for a normal life in the future. Most parents will not accept that statement – lack of treatment is not an option.

Desperate Parents Make Desperate Choices

When the pediatric world (i.e., The American Academy of Pediatrics) accepts defeat and will not help a parent help their child, understandably parents began to search for answers elsewhere. Without their doctor’s professional guidance, parents are left to find and evaluate an incredible number of alternative treatments that involve medical principles that parents do not understand. Although parents may know these treatments pose some risk, they often are ill equipped to appropriately evaluate those risks. It is a frightening and untenable position for both parent and child.

Due to a lack of leadership by the medical community, a staggering number of theories regarding the cause of autism have cropped up, and with them a plethora of alternative biomedical treatments. Parents, researchers, and medical professionals started to try these treatments, some of which did appear to help their children at times. But, almost all of the therapies were based on wrong assumptions about the primary disease process involved.

Off-Target Treatments

Some theories are based on observing actual but secondary dysfunctions, such as metabolic or mitochondrial dysfunction. These alternative treatments often focus on treating the secondary dysfunctions. These may be partially helpful, but not unsafe.

Other theories are based upon processes that have not actually occurred. These treatments may appear to work at first, but ultimately may worsen a patient’s condition longer term. Other treatments are absolutely not safe and even have caused harm to children.

We believe that unproven, risky treatments are not a safe option:

• For example, here is a report from the FDA that underscores that using chelators in children potentially can be harmful. See http://fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm229320.htm

• NeuroSPECT scans have shown abnormal functioning in the brains of patients who have used treatments, such as HBOT, chelation, and mega-doses of supplements.

Presently, parents see only two choices—trying an untested, alternative treatment or doing nothing medically to help a child who they know is sick. The NIDS Coalition would like to offer another option: Treat the underlying disease process using medicine and technology that is safe and available right now. The NIDS Coalition believes that both the medical establishment (A.A.P.) and alternative biomedical practitioners need to come back to the center, where our principles and approach lie. This is the needed third option. An option based on good science and safe clinical pediatric principles. Still recognizing and attacking with urgency a disease process harming these children.