Originally published June 16 2005
National Institutes of Health fund chelation therapy trial
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
An article posted on RedNova.com said the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Association have put up $30 million to fund a national trial to test chelation therapy, which removes heavy metals like lead and mercury from the body, on heart patients.
This controversial treatment, which removes toxic heavy metals like mercury and lead from the body, is federally approved for just that: treating lead poisoning and toxicity from other heavy metals.
It has never been approved for treating heart disease or autism, although heart patients have sought its benefits for years, and autism patients are making headlines claiming chelation's success in reversing the disorder by eliminating mercury in the body.
The ongoing commotion awoke the sleeping federal giant - also known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute - two years ago.
These two divisions of the National Institutes of Health put up a combined $30 million for a five-year national trial of chelation for heart disease.
We can thank Dr. Gervasio A. Lamas, director of cardiovascular research and academic affairs at Mount Sinai Medical Center-Miami Heart Institute in Miami Beach, for this serious, long-term look at what some doctors - even Lamas - had considered voodoo medicine.
(Patients are still being recruited for this study, and there are sites in Palm Beach County in Tequesta and Atlantis that need volunteers. Call 888-644-6226 for information, but you must be 50 or older and have already had a heart attack. Because this is a federal study, there is no payment, and it requires 40 infusions - 30 of them weekly - of either a chelating agent known as EDTA or an inactive substitute, along with the standard medications your doctor is giving you.)
The study focuses on people who have already had one heart attack because - imagine this - people with mild coronary artery disease are "so healthy and well-managed, it would take 7,000-8,000 patients" to get definitive results, he says.
Mercury is removed with a different chelating agent than EDTA, Lamas said.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml