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Dr. Rashid Buttar recently prepared a Video Message for the National Autism Association talking about Autism, and the recent high-profile case of Desiree Jennings, the 25 Year Old Vaccine Injured victim who has currently drawn a great deal of media attention.
You can watch this Video Message, and other Videos about Desiree Jennings at:
http://www.DrButtar.com/dj
If you had 30 seconds to ask Dr. Rashid A. Buttar one question about Autism or Heavy Metal Toxicity, what would your single most important question be?Ask your Question at www.AskDrButtar.com
Questions will be answered during a live teleconference on Wednesday, May 27th at 6:00 PM Eastern Time.
To access this conference call, dial 1-712-451-6000
and when asked for Participant Access Code enter: 457582#
There is no cost to participate. Hope to see you on the conference call!
Toxic Metals – Pandora’s Box
James Biddle MD
Toxic heavy metals, including lead, mercury, cadmium, aluminum, and arsenic, may be the biggest health threat of the new millennium.
Heavy metals originate within the Earth. However, we have opened Pandora’s Box by spreading these toxic metals throughout our environment. As levels rise in our air, water, and topsoil, they also rise within our bodies, contributing to chronic diseases, cancer, dementia, and premature aging.
Heavy metals poison us by disrupting our cellular enzymes, which run on nutritional minerals such as magnesium, zinc, and selenium. Toxic metals kick out the nutrients and bind their receptor sites, causing diffuse symptoms by affecting nerves, hormones, digestion, and immune function.
One example might be our current epidemic of thyroid dysfunction. The enzyme that activates thyroid hormone is dependent upon selenium and is poisoned by mercury. In 1989, the Swedish Dental Journal reported that dental staff showed extremely high concentrations of mercury in their thyroid glands.
Shockingly, the World Health Organization reported in 1991 that our leading exposure to mercury is our dental fillings. Those silver fillings usually contain fifty percent mercury, and Americans average eight fillings per person. Although dentists have been taught that dental mercury is inert, 1998 U.S. Senate Hearings confirm that it does evaporate and get absorbed into our bodies. With multiple fillings, mercury vapors in the mouth will often violate OSHA standards. Not surprisingly, mercury amalgam fillings have been banned by several progressive European countries, including Switzerland and Sweden.
According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, our next largest source of mercury is our coal-burning power plants, which emit 40 tons of mercury into the air each year. The EPA reports that rainfall in New England now contains thirty times the “safe” level of mercury for surface water. The EPA also blames mercury for neurological damage to 60,000 American babies each year, which is more U.S. citizens than died in the entire Vietnam War.
The figures for lead toxicity are just as striking. An estimated three billion pounds of lead have ben released into the environment worldwide since the Industrial Revolution. No amount of lead ingestion is safe, as even low levels can drop IQ scores by several points. In children, lead in the hair parallels classroom disruption. Meanwhile, twenty percent of American homes still have leaded water pipes, while even more still have leaded paint dust.
Aluminum toxicity raises fears of Alzheimer’s dementia. In fact, an autopsy study in 1980 showed Alzheimer’s brains had significantly more aluminum than controls. The CDC reports that one-third of U.S. cities still use aluminum to purify tap water, and those cities have more Alzheimer’s disease.
Why have the dangers of heavy metals not attracted more attention? Perhaps industry doesn’t want to clean up its act; perhaps consumers don’t want to worry about it; perhaps physicians are not taught the topic.
Most physicians still rely upon blood tests to diagnose lead toxicity and rarely even look for other toxicities. Blood tests are good for finding recent exposures, such as when children are currently living in a home with leaded paint dust. However, chronic or old exposures will not show in the blood, and can only be diagnosed by looking at residues in the hair or nails, or by collecting a urine sample after giving an agent that binds the toxic metal and pulls it out the body.
Removing toxic metals with binding agents is a process called chelation, but there are still only 300 U.S. physicians who are Board Certified in Chelation Therapy. As awareness grows, perhaps we can lower our exposures and become better at diagnosing and treating heavy metal toxicities.
James Biddle M.D. is the founder of Asheville Integrative Medicine. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine.
Mercury is the most common source of heavy metal toxicity and dental amalgams are the primary source of mercury exposure.
Heavy metals, including mercury, lead, bismuth, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, chromium, copper, gold, iron, manganese, nickel, silver, tin, titanium, zinc, and antimony, are considered one of the worst environmental threats to health. The term heavy metal refers to high specific gravity, which is the metals’ weight compared to the weight of an equal volume of water. Lead used to account for most heavy metal poisoning. Today, mercury, which is also known as quicksilver, is the most common cause of heavy metal toxicity.
Mercury Toxicity
Mercury toxicity has been reported since the first century when Roman prisoners were sentenced to work in cinnabar mines. This was considered a death sentence because of the lethal levels of mercury found in cinnabar.
In the early 1800s hat makers exposed to mercury suffered from a mercury-induced psychosis, which led to the phrase. “mad as a hatter.” Insanity was also reported in patients with syphilis who were treated with mercury in the mid-19th century.
Effects of Mercury
Mercury affects health in many ways, including:
Reduced effectiveness of antibiotics against bacteria
Abnormally low-voltage electrocardiograms (depressed heart function)
Contributes to the development of cancerous and pre-cancerous cells
Decreases levels of brain neurotransmitters, including serotonin, contributing to depression, anger, anxiety and addictions
Damages kidney cells (nephrotoxic)
Acts as an endocrine disruptor, in particular depressing the pituitary gland
Reduces blood supply to the developing fetus
Causes learning disabilities
Damages the immune system, resulting in allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases
Sources of Mercury
People today are exposed to tremendous amounts of mercury. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dental amalgam is the primary source of exposure. Studies show that the form of mercury released from dental fillings is far more prevalent than mercury compounds found in contaminated fish.
According to the World Health Organization and Health Canada, mercury levels in people with amalgam fillings cause a body burden of mercury much higher than that found in people who eat fish from Florida waters, known to have excess mercury. Dental amalgam is also responsible for 65 percent of the mercury contaminants found in San Francisco Bay (San Francisco Environmental Commission Report).
Contaminated fish rank second as sources of mercury, followed by drugs and vaccines. The influenza vaccine contains mercury, which is of special concern to pregnant women and people with autoimmune diseases. The fourth most common cause of mercury exposure is fertilizer produced by recycled toxic waste.
Body Burden
The body burden of mercury can be estimated by evaluating the number of silver amalgam fillings a person has, the presence of root canals, which contain up to 20 percent toxic metals, mainly mercury and lead, how often fish is consumed and what type. Symptoms that suggest a body burden of mercury include:
Fatigue
Tingling or numbness around mouth, face, fingers or toes
Joint problems
Headaches
Tremors
Hearing Loss
Gait and balance disturbances
Mood swings
Agitation
Depression
Gastroenteritis
Elevated MCH and MCV on complete blood count (CBC) tests
Elevated liver enzymes
Low CD8 count or elevated CD4/CD8 ratio
Changes in fractionated urine porphyrins
High urinary mercapturic acid
Diagnosing Mercury Toxicity
Blood, urine and stool samples can be used to test for mercury. Ideally, a metal challenge is given in which a chelator is first ingested that releases stored mercury. Hair can also be tested for mercury, but results can be affected by hair dyes, bleaches, perms, and straighteners. Hair analysis of mercury reflects the person’s condition for the last three months. Muscle testing can also be used to assess heavy metal toxicity.
It seems as if the makers of vaccinations have no respect for human life – and the same is true for the government agencies that stand behind them in support of their propaganda. I have long been concerned by the way vaccinations are pushed on parents and the amount of vaccines administered these days to the poor children who have no choice in the matter.
With educational systems requiring vaccinations for admittance to schools, parents are feeling as if they are left with no other choice but to vaccinate their children. With the long term and negative effects of vaccinations still not completely understood and the effectiveness of many vaccinations still unproven, putting children at risk with vaccinations strikes me as a selfish and irresponsible tactic to make money. Lately, however, the vaccine pushers have really gone too far. (more…)
Chelation therapy is a natural way to detoxify the body of toxic chemical and harmful metals (heavy metal poisoning). Chelation therapy involves the injection of ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA). It is a mean by which an organic substance (Edta) binds to minerals and ionized metals (electrically charged) such as iron, calcium, lead, copper, etc.
The first use of Chelation is in Germany in 1930. A decade later, EDTA (ethylene diamine tetraacetic) was used by some American workers suffering from lead poisoning. After many medical studies, in 1950, Dr. Norman Clarke, director of Providence Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, noted the treatment with EDTA can improve or restore health from many diseases. These improvements include, but are not limited to reduction in angina pain, decrease skin diseases, loss and keeping a normal weight, decrease in heart disease, improving memory faculties and urgency of the senses (sight, hearing, smell), increased energy, etc. (more…)
If you had 30 seconds to ask Dr. Buttar one question about Autism or Heavy Metal Toxicity, what would your single most important question be?
Ask your Question at www.AskDrButtar.com
Strife over shots: Should our kids play together?
Divided on vaccines, parents are polarized on the playground sidelines
By Jacqueline Stenson
Karey Williams never thought a parenting decision would come between her and a good friend. The two had known one another for a decade, supported each other through infertility treatment and had their first babies around the same time. But when she told the friend that she had stopped vaccinating her daughter at age 1, the relationship abruptly ended.
“She said, ‘Well then, your child can’t come into my house,’” recalls Williams, 47, who lives in the Chicago area. (more…)
From the December 2007 Idaho Observer:
Aluminum Toxicity: A misdiagnosed epidemic (Part 1)
The Back to Basics column is traditionally dedicated to rediscovering how herbs and elements from the natural world are gifts from God and have been put here to keep our minds and bodies healthy, and restore them to health when they become ill.
This month, however, we will cover the basics of aluminum, an omni-present element that is mined by man and proliferated in forms that are wreaking havoc on the minds and bodies of millions.
By Ingri Cassel
Aluminum is the third most abundant element (8 percent) in the Earth’s crust, exceeded by oxygen (47 percent) and silicon (28 percent). Because of its strong affinity to oxygen, aluminum never occurs as a metal in nature but is found only in the form of its compounds, such as alumina.
This strong affinity to oxygen also explains why it withstood all attempts to prepare it in its elemental form until well into the 19th century. The metal’s name is derived from alumen, the Latin name for alum.
From the Charlotte Observer – High levels of toxic mercury have been found in walleye caught in the Western N.C. lakes of Santeetlah and Fontana, prompting a state health warning.
Mercury occurs naturally but is released into the environment by burning coal, such as in power plants. When it falls into water, it can accumulate in fish. Eating high-mercury fish over time can pose health risks, especially for children and developing fetuses.
N.C. health officials warned pregnant women, women who may become pregnant and children under 15 not to eat walleye from lakes Santeetlah and Fontana. Others should eat no more than one meal of the fish a week.
Health advisories exist for several freshwater fish species caught in the rivers of Eastern North Carolina, and for largemouth bass caught anywhere in the state. For more information: www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/fish or call the N.C. Division of Public Health at 919-707-5900.
