6NEWS Investigators: A cure for autism?

02:43 PM EDT on Friday, July 15, 2005

By STUART WATSON / 6NEWS

Autism has touched many families. Most people know someone who has dealt with the disease.

For the few who don’t, but pay their taxes, autism has touched their wallets. Tax dollars are used to treat patients and search for a cure.

Now a local doctor said he has a cure, which he's promoting in seminars around the country.

The 6NEWS Investigators found experts who said the so-called "cure" is more hype than hope.

We first heard from Dr. Rashid Buttar at a seminar on autism at the Charlotte Convention Center almost five months ago.

As the diagnosis of autism explodes, such seminars promoting treatments have become common. There is another one in Charlotte this weekend.

Faced with a complex disease, Dr. Buttar offers a simple cause and a simple cure which has come under fire.

Like most toddlers, Jamie Handley started speaking, but then he stopped. His parents said he would wander around in circles in his own world.

Even though the Handleys live in California, they began using skin drops developed by a North Carolina doctor.

Dr. Rashid Buttar of Cornelius is a man with a mission, a message, a method.

“Autism is treatable. It's reversible. It's nothing more than mercury poisoning,” said JB Handley, founder of Generation Rescue.

“I know that these children are not autistic. There is no such thing as autism. It is toxicity,” Buttar said.

His mission is to cure autism. His message is simple.

“Yes mercury is the cause and to remove mercury is the answer,” said Buttar.

His method is a therapy called chelation.

“Chelation is a general term. It means the removal of metals,” Buttar said.

It can be administered by pill or intravenously. But Buttar invented a liquid compound now made by the batch load in Gastonia. Buttar goes so far as to say his drops are the only successful autism therapy.

“This little bottle that helps the kids get better is the only thing that has been shown to conclusively get these kids better. Based on if you want to call it anecdotal or whatever,” Buttar said.

Dr. James Laidler once promoted chelation at conferences just like the ones in Charlotte.

“They were selling hope,” said Laidler. “For parents who are desperate, hope is a very addictive drug.”

Laidler is an Oregon M.D. and has two sons who were diagnosed with autism.

“Most of his improvement came after we stopped everything,” Laidler said.

No one would say mercury is good for kids, whether Buttar's bottle of skin drops cures autism is another question entirely.

“Those folks have never even shown that it's even absorbed through the skin,” Laidler said.

In a rebuttal to that comment Buttar said, “No, we haven't done that. Why would I waste my time proving something that I already know is working innately?”

“So these parents, these desperate parents are buying expensive skin lotion,” said Laidler.

And he's not the only one questioning the effectiveness of chelation. 6NEWS showed Buttar's presentation to Jim Bodfish, a PHD and autism researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

When asked if the treatment worked, Bodfish said, “At this point we have no evidence that chelation is a significant treatment.”

But Bodfish understands the appeal of a simple cause and cure.

“When there's no known cause that's this vacuum that opens up this black hole that allows snake oil salesmen to move in,” said Bodfish.

“If this is snake oil and what they're doing is medicine, then I choose to practice snake oil. And I have no embarrassment with it,” said Buttar.

Dr. Joe Stegman has seen hundreds of patients for autism in his Kannapolis practice, but when it comes to mercury he said, “I have yet to have one (patient) have any detectable (mercury) in their blood."

So ask him about chelation as cure. “I wish it were. I wish we knew what caused autism. But I think it's a lie. I think it's a sham,” Stegman said.

“If this was a sham then I'll tell you what. This is the best sham that has ever been put on. I think you'd have to agree with that," replied Buttar.

Buttar said one bottle of drops costs more than $150 and will last more than a month. He said parents should commit to using the drops for at least two years.

The drug contained in the drops has not been approved by the FDA for use in the United States.