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Getting the Lead Out
Of course, good medical practice requires identifying specific extra sources
of exposure. This can be amazing, and I have saved lives by being a Sherlock
Holmes.
Why not devise a program that helps to deal with all the heavy metals in
my patients and never stops working, one that can be most likely implemented
for
less cost than might be spent dealing with just the dental contribution to
the overall body burden of toxic heavy metals?
I have identified and removed major sources of toxicity in my years of following
up on abnormal blood, urine, and hair heavy metal testing as director at
one time of MINERALAB, then the largest trace element testing lab in the
world,
subsequently acquired by Doctor's Data. I have written books that identify
all the possible contributors that can aggravate the overall toxicity that
I am focusing on in this article. These toxins include certain eating utensils
to lead paint in homes, even lead linings in bathtubs and, of course, lead
paints and lead in drinking water. Again, we need to learn to look at the
total body burden of toxins and not simply focus on just one problem, such
as the
obvious mercury exposure in vaccines, dental amalgams, or particular fish.
Lead is always there and easy-to-treat. For any heavy metal exposure, always
try to deal with the lead too, as it makes the other exposures worse, and
treatment is both easy and cost-effective. This approach is essential if
we are to provide
optimal benefits to patients, whether you are dealing with a depressed mercury-exposed
dentist, who may also have associated cardiovascular disease, or a hyperactive
child.
Anytime my ODP does NOT find significantly improved levels on toxic metal
retesting in any tissue three to form months after starting, my experience
has been that
we have a persistent source of heavy metal that must be identified and removed.
Anyone being treated for mercury should also be treated for lead, since lead
makes mercury up to 100 times more toxic. That is why my ODP uses many metal-binding
agents, including EDTA, DMSA, selenium, garlic, etc.
Remember, all heavy metals drag down the immunity, so there, almost routinely,
will be an increased total body burden of pathogens that may need concurrent
treatment with something, perhaps, oxidative therapies, or antibiotics, etc.
which I will be helping teach at the oxidative workshops offered by ACAM.
Autism and Metal Toxicity
I have reviewed extensive documentation, from Doctors Data, involving over
10,000 data points from our autism protocol research. The children on that
program always saw substantial improvement, even after all prior attempts
had failed completely (or even made the child worse), no matter the age.
Whether
the patient is five years old or 20, the potential for favorable response
to the program does not diminish, although, admittedly, the protocol for
autism
requires more detail than I am covering in this article. That protocol requires
great attention to all details, as covered on my DVDs and in the books on
autism that I have co-authored (please see www.gordonresearch.com).
The program that I have helped teach and have written about extensively has
convinced me that there are genetic issues involving methylation in all autistic
children. I find those same genetic issues also contribute to many other
chronic, neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Multiple
Sclerosis,
ALS, etc. These mutations impair the body's ability to excrete heavy metals
and control viral infections. This helps set the stage for lowered immunity,
which then permits the infections we all carry to take off. Effective methylation
is essential for effective detoxification as well as for infection control
throughout life. A total program is necessary, taking a few years to gradually
but continuously achieve success.
The autistic children studied generally have also been shown to have live
virus. Some of their viral load seems to be the same as the virus injected
with their
MMR vaccinations. These vaccinations for a time were being given with thimerosal-
(an organomercurial; i.e., mercury). Of course no one is doing routine genetic
testing yet on all newborns, so no one knew that these children were genetically "at
risk." The environmental degradation that pollutes our environment with
increasing mercury simply sets the stage for more children to be unable to
handle the stress of vaccines. Although since much of the thimerosal has now
been removed from those vaccines, there seems to be some decrease in the overall
incidence of autism. However, environmental toxicity just increases. For instance,
we have the new coal-burning power plants in India and China that may fill
that "void" and bring mercury levels back up to that time when
all vaccines contained mercury.
The vaccines clearly have often been reported by parents to be the straw
that pushes the child over the brink. Soon after the vaccines, these children
change;
they lose speech. Many different infections are complicating the diagnosis
and treatment of heavy metal poisoning; there are numerous infections documented
to hold heavy metals. Study this by learning that Coxackie infections can
hold 70 times too much cadmium in the infected tissues. This is a vital point
about
detoxification requiring concurrent treatment of the pathogen load if we
hope to get at the critical heavy metals that are impairing function such
as loss
of speech in a child. These infections fool doctors into believing there
are no more heavy metals to treat, leaving patients treated incompletely.
It is shocking but true that often the toughest children we have treated
would have previously shown only very little or no mercury excretion after
IV DMPS,
with the well-meaning doctors who treated them. Sometimes doctors gave up
and mistakenly informed the parents that there was no mercury in their autistic
child. They conclude erroneously that any heavy metal detoxification with
chelation
would not help. I hope this article helps gets the right information out
to everyone.
That information was totally wrong. The total detoxification program we developed
always increases excretion of heavy metals, and when this begins, we see
substantial clinical improvement follow. We only need to use gentle oral
EDTA, malic acid
and/or garlic, MSM, lipoic acid, etc. (i.e., ODP) as our primary oral treatment,
and over time, we almost invariably start to find mercury released – or
tin or antimony or cadmium or aluminum or lead. These metals were not coming
up with previous use of IV chelators because of genetics and infection problems.
There is always increased excretion of toxic metals seen with the correct
program, sometimes more in feces than in urine.
There is, however, no rhyme or reason regarding what comes first. Sometimes
these metals would almost be off the chart in some children when we used
fecal and or urine testing with Doctor's Data, even though the poor results
with
standard IV provocation caused the family and doctor to think that there
was no mercury or other toxic metal present. Sometimes tin is the metal excreted
for three months, then antimony for three months, then lead, and finally,
a
year later, mercury or aluminum.
These metals will not come out, even with intravenous application of DMPS,
until a total program is developed and followed wherein the body's overall
health is raised sufficiently to permit overcoming these infections. That,
in addition, with immune supporting and RNA-based therapies permits the patient's
body to overcome this total body burden of infection. When the viral load
finally starts to leave the body, we often find immediately thereafter significant
spikes in the excretion of the heavy metals, which many times had not been
chelatable before that anti- pathogen treatment began to work, even with
aggressive
intravenous application of chelating agents in these children.
Infections may promote local tissue increases in metallothionein, which can
be a very potent chelator, and may have a higher stability constant, thus
sequestering the metal in the infected tissue more tightly than the concentration
of chelating
agent in the affected tissue, even when the EDTA and/or DMSA or DMPS or other
chelators were being administered intravenously. (I seldom use DMPS as I
do not like the benefit-to-risk ratio.)
We can turn around even the toughest cases, given time and adequate family
support. Remember, there is no cure for these infections that are holding
the metals, so we have to help the child get well enough to overcome the
infections.
This can be even more difficult when these is also be a genetic component,
such as the COMT gene. From birth, these patients are markedly impaired in
their ability to excrete heavy metals. This means we have to using our comprehensive
protocol, which concurrently treats all aspects of the problem; ideally,
this needs to be personalized, based on genetic test results. Also, always,
we remove
all suspect foods from our patients' diets; these may include all gluten
foods – not just wheat, dairy, and corn – and any other foods
where testing or history makes them suspect. I also have these patients eliminate
all soft drinks, particularly those with high fructose corn syrup. In addition,
we have to clean up their total environment, including chemicals stored in
the home. We also must treat the total body burden of pathogens, and many
will
be excited to learn more about how to do this with oxidative therapies at
ACAM. This is particularly vital for most chronic degenerative diseases,
including
heart disease, multiple sclerosis to Parkinson's, etc. not just autism.
I also have been impressed with Alinia and Daxon as drug treatments that
deal with frequently under-diagnosed serious parasite issues. These are commonly
missed with standard stool testing. This parasite problem is almost another
subspecialty and needs motivated and trained specialists to diagnosis and
treat.
I sometimes treat empirically, as we do for horses and dogs, as I am convinced
that far too many of the parasites today are not amenable to simple herbal
therapies. I recommend learning about drugs like Alinia – or Daxon,
as it's known in Mexico, where the drug is less expensive.
Summary
It is not the purpose of this article to duplicate the over 60 hours of teaching
we have done in the past three years at our semi-annual conferences, all
of which are on DVDs. I only want to cover a few highlights that might stimulate
a broader interest on the part of all Townsend Letter readers to learn that,
whatever your practice, you probably have been given misinformation regarding
metal binding, bio-inorganic chemistry, and chelation, and that misinformation
is most likely seriously impairing your ability to serve your patients optimally.
Our lifetime accumulations of heavy metals begin at conception, and I advocate
detoxing prospective parents. This means we need to start ODP as early as possible,
at preconception, and continue though gestation. This means pregnant patients
must always also be on their mandatory concurrent aggressive oral supplementation
problem. You may also check for malabsorption so that no potential zinc deficiency
develops. There can be legitimate criticism regarding use of ODP during pregnancy,
particularly if you include EDTA. EDTA was reported in rodents to induce mutagenesis,
but the evidence showed that adequate zinc replacement eliminated that problem.
My website covers informed consent issues for problems like Coumadin replacement
to nutritionally based practices. I am convinced that most chronic health conditions
in any human or animal will respond better to the chosen treatment plan for
their condition if concurrent use of my ODP were employed.
In conclusion, as I summarize both Part One and Part Two of this article, I
also offer these key points to remember (in no particular order):
- IV
Chelation therapy can significantly improve cardiovascular status
without necessarily reversing atherosclerosis,
which in fact
occasionally worsens.
- Optimal Heavy metal detoxification
also may need to concurrently lower the total body burden of pathogens.
- The
total body burden of pathogens can be treated with oxidative therapies.
- Selenium
is an extremely low-cost strategy that appropriately used may help
significantly help deal with many mercury issues.
- The Environmental
Protection Agency's journal, Environmental
Health Perspectives,
publishes vital documentation regarding
the dangers of lead, mercury, cadmium, tin, antimony, uranium, aluminum, etc.
The
American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology, under
Robert Nash,
MD, attempts to help set standards in the area of clinical metal
toxicology.
- Negative provoked urine tests using IV chelating agent(s)
do not rule out the significant probability that a patient still
has a significantly increased body burden of heavy metals, which may be revealed
with X-ray fluorescence, which can determine bone lead levels.
Bone lead
is not innocuous and is in equilibrium with tissues throughout the
body, and
therefore elevated bone lead is associated with
earlier development of cataracts. This corroborates the obvious fact
that lead
is then not just in bone but in kidney, spleen, liver, heart and brain,
as well as the eye.
- Ideal metal-binding agents should be those that are quite
safe for long-term use. Average bone turn-over for adults
is fifteen years; therefore, a realistic program for heavy metal detoxification
should always be planned for a minimum of fifteen years. The
ideal agents
that we find have unique synergy today includes
DMSA, EDTA, malic acid, garlic, fiber, selenium, penicillamine, desferoxamine,
vitamin C,
rutosid,
lipoic acid, taurine, silybin. These are some
nutrients that are ancillary
to enhancing the effectiveness of oral chelators
such as DMSA.
- The growing fetus is used by the mother's body as a toxic dump
site for the mercury, and toxic metals all bioaccumulate
in the growing fetus, leading to over 600,000 children born with elevated mercury
levels at birth.
- A hair test showing low levels
of mercury may mean nothing as it simply may be a patient with
a genetic issue impairing
the excretion of heavy metals; such a patient may need ODP much more than some
patients
with higher levels of hair mercury.
- Rapidly increasing utilization
of coal-burning electric power plants in China and other places
around the world
is dramatically increasing the level of pollution and degrading our environment.
- Metal-binding agents/chelating agents have many vital functions
in the body. Antioxidants, including ascorbic
acid, under certain conditions, can become pro-oxidant. There is some research
showing the binding
of transition metal by metal-binding agents
can help avoid that pro-oxidant
status.
- EDTA orally administered with heparin-like
compounds (mucopolysaccaride) may be a safe alternative to Coumadin,
Plavix, or even aspirin, decreasing clots and lowering blood viscosity for
fully informed and consenting
patients. My website, www.gordonresearch.com,
has approximately ten thousand pages of information searchable by using the "Search," so
a search on mercury will receive over
a 181 interesting articles that I have managed to accumulate on that narrowed
topic.
- I find it is not essential to select a treatment that crosses the
blood brain barrier to get excellent results
in treating chronic neurotoxicity. The simple laws of diffusion support the fact
that if you continue
slowly to always be pulling more mercury
and other toxins out
of the body than is coming in, over time, you will have
lower and lower levels in plasma, serum, extra cellular fluids, brain tissue,
etc.
We lose
ten billion cells everyday.
- We all need
to learn more about bio-inorganic chemistry, which is another word
for metal-binding in medicine. There
are textbooks with these exact titles. In fact, when I was first researching
chelation, the
very first book I got was from Lippincott
and was entitled Metal Binding in Medicine. It explained how the concept of
chelation had virtually
leapt from the laboratory into clinical
medicine. These were the published proceedings of a conference held in 1959,
put on by Dr. Seven.
That
book changed my life, and I hope I
motivate some reader to pick
up this subject matter, as pollution will not go away
and we need better and better answers.
- Pathologic calcification of vascular
tissues can be effectively diagnosed and treated and even reversed
with
a program that I have written extensively about the includes vitamin K-2 ,
along with aggressive vitamin
C
supplementation
along with Pueraria Mirificia, strontium,
and boron etc. This program also seems to routinely prevent and even reverse
osteoporosis without
using the drugs being prescribed,
which have very substantial dangerous
side effects.
- Vitamin K2 research
particularly Menaquinone 7 clearly has been documented with extensive
studies at the University
of Maastricht in Holland to be an important part of the answer to dealing with
calcification of
vascular tissues
- Everyone adequately
tested today will be found positive for some forms of Chlamydia,
CMV, herpes, SV40,
and possibly Lyme. Appropriately administered oxidative therapies will lower
the total body burden of pathogens.
- EDTA is only 5-18% absorbed, yet even the
non-absorbed portion can help save your life. It will
increase fecal levels of toxic metals, pulling out the metals we are ingesting.
EDTA will also lower
the level of free-radical reactions going on
in the intestines, decreasing the levels of mutagen and carcinogens in feces,
and thus reducing
the potential
for colon cancer, while also
decreasing the potential for entero-hepatic re-uptake of toxic metals. The
absorbed portion oral EDTA seems
to activate many useful functions, such as
a weak heparin-like effect from a mucopolysaccaride synergy, and
never fails to
consistently
lower lead levels.
- Menopausal women frequently
become hypertensive. New research recognizes a relationship between
bone
loss and increasing release of lead from those bones causing low-level lead
toxicity. This may lead to increased
blood pressure as well as
adversely affecting all aspects of
the immune system. This suggests that long-term
lowering of bone lead stores can
have many hidden benefits.
- We now have an epidemic of disabled children, including those affected
by autism, and evidence of
dramatically increasing levels of heavy metals in all living organisms everywhere
on earth. We now have extensive
documentation regarding the
adverse effects of these heavy metals
on
our lifespan, on all causes
of morbidity and mortality, and on our IQ and worker productivity, etc. My work
in the field of autism confirms
that beyond question there
are many infections in these children. These infections are responsible for holding
onto toxic metals including
antimony, tin, uranium, aluminum,
lead, mercury, cadmium.
- As the world becomes more toxic, even farmers will have
to look into their cost benefit ratio
in considering life time detoxification of their herds. This may lead to preventatively
treating hogs, chickens,
beef and work animals.
My work with performance animals has indicated that those who were
treated with
the Beyond Fiber, the Beyond
C and the Essential Daily Defense products
that I formulated for Longevity Plus were able to go from average performing,
non-Blue Ribbon
winning average horses to Grand Prix champions.
We need to offer some effective long-term
answer to the problems I've detailed in this article, and my
ODP provides a long-term solution. It may be a little late to stop
the polluters, so we all
need the ODP to enhance excretions of these toxins.
Please feel free to challenge these ideas. They represent an overview from
my 35 years of involvement in Chelation therapy, during which time, I have
been a co-founder 35 years ago of what is now called ACAM and a co-founder
of the American Board of Chelation therapy, which has now become the American
Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology, an organization I serve as advisor.
Author's Note: I have extensive references
to support the concepts I have expressed here. My last article published
in ACAM Journal 2001 has 183 pertinent references. That article, and
others mentioned here, can be viewed at www.gordonresearch.com.
When there, use the Search feature if you want to learn more about
specific topics such as autism, cancer, mercury, multiple sclerosis,
etc.
G.F.
Gordon, MD, DO, MD (H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
600 N. Beeline Hwy
Payson, Arizona 85541
928-472-4263
ggordon@gordonresearch.com
www.gordonresearch.com
Garry F. Gordon, MD, DO, MD (H) received his Doctor of Osteopathy
in 1958 from the Chicago College of Osteopathy in Illinois. He received
his honorary MD degree from the University of California Irvine in
1962 and completed a Radiology Residency from Mt. Zion in San Francisco,
California in 1964. For many years, he was the Medical Director of
Mineral Lab in Hayward, California, a leading laboratory for trace
mineral analysis worldwide.
Dr. Gordon is on the Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners for Arizona,
Co-Founder of the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM),
Founder/President of the International College of Advanced Longevity
(ICALM), Board Member of International Oxidative Medicine Association
(IOMA), and an advisor to the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology
(ABCMT). He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for
The National Foundation for Alternative Medicine.
With
Morton Walker, DPM, Dr. Gordon co-authored The
Chelation Answer.( Buy
The Chelation Answer)
In addition, he was the instructor and examiner for all chelation physicians.
Currently, he is responsible for peer review for Chelation therapy
in the State of Arizona.
As an internationally recognized expert on chelation therapy, Dr. Gordon
is now attempting to establish standards for the proper use of oral
and intravenous chelation therapy as an adjunct therapy for all diseases.
He lectures extensively on The End Of Bypass Surgery Is In Sight and
The Future of Chelation.
Dr. Gordon is President of Gordon Research Institute and a full-time
consultant for Longevity Plus, a nutritional supplement company located
in Payson, Arizona. He is responsible for the design of the majority
of their supplements, which are widely used by alternative health practitioners
around the world.
Dr. Gordon is coauthoring a book about Chelation therapy and heavy
metals detoxification with science writer David Jay Brown, tentatively
titled, Ultimate Detoxification: EDTA Chelation
Therapy and Beyond.
Financial
Disclosure
G. Gordon, MD, DO, MD (H), is a consultant to many companies around
the world involved in nutritional product formulation, development,
and marketing. These include several companies providing metal-binding
products for use in his Advanced Nutrition Detoxification protocols,
which he is introducing around the world. Dr Gordon has not been
paid to write this article.
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