If EDTA Chelation Therapy is so Good, Why Is It Not More Widely Accepted?
http://www.drcranton.com/chelation/carter.htm
When he wrote this original article Dr. Carter was Professor and Head, Nutrition Section, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Reprinted from the Journal of Advancement in Medicine, Volume 2, Numbers 1/2, Spring/Summer 1989, pages 213-226.
ABSTRACT: A summary of the medical politics, turf struggles between medical specialties and factions in the health care professions, and the medical economics of EDTA chelation therapy is described in detail to answer the question, "If EDTA chelation therapy is so good, why is it not more widely accepted?"
Most people, including physicians, are not aware of the medical politics,
legal machinations and economic sanctions that covertly control the practice of
medicine in the United States. A physician who introduces an innovative and
nontraditional type of therapy often becomes the target of those forces. That is
especially true if a new therapy, like EDTA chelation: 1) involves a major shift
in the scientific paradigm; 2) if acceptance of the new therapy somehow implies
that currently used medical practices are inappropriate; or 3) if the new
therapy threatens the financial well being of a politically powerful and well
established branch of the medical profession. Quite the opposite occurred with
the immediate and widespread acceptance of bypass surgery and balloon
angioplasty, which quickly brought wealth and fame to surgeons, cardiologists,
large teams of health care professionals, and the hospital industry.
When a radical new therapy like chelation is first introduced, physicians who do
not utilize that therapy feel threatened, both professionally and financially.
Their professional integrity is threatened by obsolescence of their scientific
knowledge and they lose patients who seek out the new therapy. They forget that
if their established treatments were really successful, and without major
disadvantages, patients would not look to another type of treatment.
As with EDTA chelation therapy, major pressures are brought to bear on the
"deviant" physician to coerce him back into the accepted mold. He is ostracized
by his peers; he comes under professional attack for "lack of ethics;" his
medical and mental competence are questioned; he is accused of "exploiting" his
patients for personal gain; and epithets of "quack" and "charlatan" are hurled
his way. Ad hominum attacks are common, in the absence of more cogent
and scientific criticisms.
Well known historical examples of that phenomenon occurred with the introduction
of the germ theory of disease. That simple concept took 50 years for complete
acceptance by the medical profession.
Lister was viciously attacked when he proposed that wound infections were not
inevitable after surgery if aseptic techniques were used. Semmelweis was
likewise dealt with when he urged doctors to wash their hands before delivering
babies to prevent maternal deaths from puerperal sepsis. Lister's
recommendations were not accepted by mainstream medicine for many decades, and
Semmelwels was persecuted to his death by medical colleagues, who were incensed
by the notion that they themselves transmitted disease from patient to patient
on their unwashed hands. Has human nature changed since that time?
The history of medicine is replete with examples of medical "heretics" who were
eventually credited with major advances. They were often not recognized for
their achievements until after death. Paracelsus, for example, is exalted as one
of the great pioneers in medicine, but he was the original "quack" in his own
time. Paracelsus introduced the use of mercury to treat syphilis. There was no
other cure for syphilis at the time, although, as with many treatments today,
the lethal dose of mercury was close to the therapeutic dose. Paracelsus was
viciously attacked by his medical peers and derisively called a "quack" (short
for "quacksalber," the old German word for mercury).
Inertia in science and medicine is a powerful force and is reinforced by major
economic and legal forces in the United States. Many industries and special
interest groups that are politically and economically powerful would be hurt
financially if chelation therapy were to become more widely accepted. Those same
industries have a major influence in our society at all levels. Grants for
university and medical school research often stem from those same sources. They
spend heavily to lobby for laws, regulations and government funded medical
research to favor their own interests and to suppress competition. It is
difficult to obtain NIH research funds in the face of opposition from powerful
lobbies when that research goes against those special interests.
Those same special interests have a major influence on lay and professional
exposure through the news media. Advertising revenues are essential to the
survival of medical journals, newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Even
with freedom of the press, the media cannot survive without advertising
revenues. There often exists an understandable reluctance to bite the hand that
feeds them. It is difficult to educate the public and the medical profession
about new developments without media cooperation. Medical schools also cannot
afford to offend their corporate sources of research funds.
The welfare of the American public is often pushed aside by the industrial quest
for profits and pressures to suppress competition. Every industry wants a
monopoly, if that can be achieved. Mainstream medicine has come very close to
that goal.
Scientific arrogance is commonplace. Physicians consider themselves to be
experts in their own field. If a majority of physicians do not endorse a new
therapy, they collectively rely on public recognition of their own "expertise"
to discount a new concept that they themselves have not yet embraced. They
forget that all great advances in medicine began with a small minority. Their
thinking tends to follow along these lines: "If I'm the expert and I don't use
this new therapy and if my many colleagues and peers are experts and they don't
believe in the new therapy, then we must be right and that small group of
physicians who believe differently must be wrong. We're the experts."
The most frequent criticism leveled by critics of non-traditional and
alternative medical therapies is that new treatments are "unproven" because
randomized, double-blind, controlled studies have not yet been done to prove
effectiveness. Those criticisms ignore the fact that most medical procedures
routinely performed in the practice of medicine are also unproven using those
same criteria.
The Office of Technology Assessment, a branch of the United States Congress,
with the help of an advisory board of eminent university faculty, has published
a report with the conclusion that, " . . . only 10 to 20 percent of all
procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious
by controlled trial." Therefore, 80% to 90% of medical procedures routinely
performed are unproven.(1) That report further points out that research which
purports to prove effectiveness of the remaining 10% to 20% of medical
procedures is largely flawed, and " . . many of the other procedures may not be
efficacious." The most frequent reason for not accepting the value of EDTA
chelation therapy reflects a flagrant double standard.
A complete program of chelation therapy involves dietary changes, away from
highly refined and processed foods. The use of nonprescription nutritional
supplements is emphasized, more than expensive and highly profitable drugs,
patented and marketed by the pharmaceutical industry. Chelation therapy is
performed in doctors' offices, without the need for hospitals, surgeons,
cardiologists and the large team of health professionals who profit greatly in
dollars and reputation from the $6 billion per year bypass surgery and balloon
angioplasty industry.
For obvious reasons, double-blind studies have never been done to prove or
disprove clinical benefits from bypass surgery or balloon angioplasty. The
effectiveness of EDTA chelation therapy has been clinically proven to the same
extent as bypass surgery and angioplasty, or more so, as established in data
from the clinical studies published in the
TEXTBOOK OF EDTA CHELATION
THERAPY.
Recent reports conclude that from 44% to 85% of coronary artery bypass surgery
is routinely performed on patients who do not meet the criteria for benefit,
even using standards derived from non-blinded studies.(2-9) The media
consistently makes light of such flagrant abuses of surgery, while widely
publicizing any hint of "quackery" associated with chelation. The American
Medical Association, in its official journal (JAMA), admits that at least 44% of
all coronary artery bypass surgery is done for inappropriate reasons.(9)
When a therapy is widely accepted by the medical profession, no scientific proof
of effectiveness is required, and anecdotal evidence is accepted as valid. If an
alternative therapy is contested by those physicians, however, they attack by
demanding that the therapy in question be subjected to very expensive and
time-consuming double-blinded, placebo controlled trials costing tens of
millions of dollars to meet FDA requirements. Medicare regulations also exclude
the need for scientific proof for treatments that are utilized by a majority of
physicians. The federal government thereby adds support to this double standard.
In the case of EDTA, those demands ignore the fact that it would normally cost
many millions of dollars for double-blind studies to prove effectiveness, and
public funding for medical research cannot be obtained without political
support. Without patent protection, pharmaceutical manufacturers will likewise
not fund that research. The cost and time required for research of that scope is
also beyond the resources of the clinicians in private practice who utilize
chelation therapy. EDTA chelation therapy has therefore been an "orphan" without
a source of financial support for research.
Despite those drawbacks, even in the face of a severe and unjust double standard
imposed by opponents, research money has been successfully obtained from private
foundations and from patients and physicians who believe in this treatment.
Patients have been accepted into double-blind studies, beginning in mid-1988
[those studies were not completed for political reasons].
Deprived of reimbursement by medical insurance, patients have thus far paid for
EDTA chelation therapy entirely from their own pockets. If Medicare refuses to
pay for a therapy, most other insurance companies follow suit. It costs far more
to fight those unjust policies in court than to pay for the treatment.
Historical examples of similar campaigns to control the practice of medicine, in
favor of organized medicine and other special interests, against the public
interest, are easy to find. As many innovative physicians have discovered, one
of the quickest ways to become the target of opposing forces is to utilize
nutritional or other nontoxic and noninvasive treatments for cancer.
On August 3, 1953, Charles W. Tobey Jr., son of the late Senator Charles Tobey,
Chairman of the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, entered into
the Congressional Record a report of an investigation by Benedict F. Fitzgerald
Jr., Special Counsel to the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.
Fitzgerald's investigation was directed at an alleged conspiracy to suppress
what, in the 1950s, would have been considered alternative methods of treating
cancer. His findings could equally have been applied to other innovative and
nontraditional methods of treating any disease.
Fitzgerald criticized those who supported the party line of the American Medical
Association (AMA), and who applied themselves to efforts to hinder, suppress,
and restrict the free use of new therapies. Those therapies included medicines
that were supported by evidence of success from clinical records, case
histories, pathological reports, and x-ray and other photographic proof,
together with living testimony of former cancer victims. Fitzgerald concluded
that a conspiracy existed, and that public and private funds had been "thrown
round like confetti at a country fair" to shut down clinics, hospitals and
research laboratories which did not conform to the AMA's viewpoint.
Investigation tactics used against emerging and nontraditional medical therapies
show a consistent pattern of: 1) arrogance; 2) a sense of mission and of knowing
what is best and right for other people; 3) depriving citizens of their
constitutionally protected rights to freedom of choice; and, 4) acceptance of
the concept that the end justifies the means. Opponents of nontraditional
therapies have viewed as legitimate activities: disinformation, smear campaigns,
harassment, instituting IRS tax audits, encouraging patients to sue physicians,
entrapment, illegal wiretaps, and possibly even break-ins. These tactics have
been used against physicians for nothing more serious than administering
intravenous EDTA chelation therapy.
When evidence, real or fabricated, is uncovered which is unfavorable to the
targeted physician, a representative of the opposition will contact the state
board of medical examiners, asking for an official investigation and
prosecution. Pressures are brought on the physician to cease and desist his
aberrant practices or lose his license to practice medicine.
Investigations and proceedings of licensing boards are often confidential and
not available, even to the physician under investigation. By definition, it is
difficult for an outsider to learn all of the specifics of such covert tactics,
although a good approximation of how these things work has gradually emerged
over the years.
The power structure of organized medicine may be visualized as a pyramid, with
the sides composed of different physician specialty associations, each with its
own special interests to protect. The result may be collectively called
"organized medicine." The apex of the pyramid represents the governing boards
and officers of those groups, while the base represents the broad general
membership. Local and state chapters centralize the power and influence from the
base upward to the national level. This pyramidal structure in medical politics
forms the basis for a conspiracy that operates in coalition with other groups to
benefit the individuals who compose the core of the pyramid. Although the
composite organizations draw authority to sanction their collective actions from
individual members, those members are often unaware of the larger structure
within which power brokers and medical politicians operate.
By representing almost every practicing physician and specialty group in the
country, this coalition has enormous influence in the affairs of our nation.
That is especially true when an alliance is formed between organized medicine,
the pharmaceutical industry and food processing corporations. The food industry
profits greatly from sales of margarine [trans fats], unsaturated fats, fake
eggs, and other refined and fractionated foods with the endorsement of
physicians.
The AMA and other segments of organized medicine are second only to the National
Rifle Association in political campaign contributions to senators and
congressmen at the national level. They give more than any other special
interest groups in the country. Through political influence, bought and paid
for, the policies of public institutions and federal and state agencies can be
influenced by this group, including medical schools and universities, HHS [DHEW],
PHS, FDA, FTC, NIH, state medical licensing boards, etc. When a physician is
selected for censure by organized medicine, the FDA, FBI, IRS, postal
inspectors, district attorneys, Antifraud Division of Medicare and other
agencies with quasi-police powers are quick to join the fray. This has occurred
to physicians who have had the courage to offer EDTA chelation therapy to their
patients.
An average of approximately 60% of all state medical licensing boards' time is
spent confronting, rehabilitating or defrocking physicians who are impaired or
otherwise incompetent. Most of those are chemically dependent on alcohol and
drugs. Increasingly, addicted physicians are being successfully rehabilitated,
with the help of medical societies and recovered physicians. That function is
truly in the best interests of both the medical profession and the consumer.
The remaining 40% of state medical licensing boards' time is, on the average,
spent "witch-hunting," in the manner described above, in an effort to control
the practice of medicine. The result is to force conformance with majority
practices and to protect the medical profession against financial competition
from "maverick" physicians who are bold enough to espouse innovative practices
ahead of their peers. Restraint of trade and government support of a medical
monopoly is the bottom line.
All too often, academic physicians on medical school faculties and research
scientists allow themselves to be influenced by propaganda and disinformation,
instead of obtaining the true facts and relying on their own analytical
abilities and scientific methodology to determine the truth. The overwhelming
majority of physicians in clinical practice appear to be totally unaware that a
conspiracy exists and that covert activities are routinely taking place to
protect their monopoly and to prevent competition.
The AMA Coordinating Conference on Health Information (CCHI) was formed in 1964,
as an offshoot of the AMA's Committee on Quackery.(10) All responsible citizens,
by definition, must be opposed to quackery. The main difference between the AMA
Committee on Quackery and the newly formed CCHI was that the CCHI was a totally
secret and covert organization which functioned in coalition in a network with
other, similar groups. The CCHI operates in partnership with the National
Council on Health Fraud with regional chapters in many states. The director of
each regional chapter must swear to an oath of secrecy. National and regional
chapters of the Council on Health Fraud stay in communication with individual
members of each state's board of medical licensing examiners. The CCHI operates
through this secretive network, without access from public scrutiny. There are
no checks and balances.
Both the CCHI and the National Council on Health Fraud purport to be scientific
and authoritative sources of information. A significant portion of their
activities, however, have nothing to do with real quackery, but are rather a
means to coerce practitioners of medicine to adhere to practices approved by
medical politicians. The end result is to preserve certain monopolistic and
economic advantages enjoyed by organized medicine.
An important reason that research into the use of EDTA in the treatment of
atherosclerosis and its complications stopped after 1960, until the mid 1980s,
was because of an active and vicious campaign of misinformation and unjust
harassment of physicians who used EDTA in their practices. Scientific
researchers who showed an interest were also discouraged and harassed.
Practicing physicians who used EDTA have been summoned to appear before state
boards of medical examiners to answer complaints. Charges were often contrived
and rarely documented by careful investigation. The Federation of State Boards
of Medical Examiners is associated with the CCHI network. State boards of
medical examiners are legally constituted bodies that have ultimate authority to
revoke a physician's license to practice medicine. Medical licensing boards in
at least six states have attempted to mandate a blanket prohibition against
chelation therapy within their states. Fortunately, the courts have been quick
to nullify most such arbitrary rulings.
EDTA was already on the market as a legitimate pharmaceutical agent to treat
lead toxicity, digitalis toxicity and acute hypercalcemia. EDTA is legally
available for physician use, and it is quite legal for any licensed physician to
utilize a drug for any purpose which, in that physician's judgment, is best for
his patient. The only restriction is that pharmaceutical companies [and
compounding pharmacies] that manufacture EDTA cannot make advertising and
marketing claims of effectiveness in the treatment of atherosclerosis, in the
absence of FDA approval for that indication.
The patent on EDTA expired many years ago. It is now a generic drug. Any drug
company can manufacture and sell EDTA. There is no longer any patent protection
to allow recovery of research, development and licensing costs. It customarily
costs a drug company tens of millions of dollars for research and paperwork to
satisfy FDA requirements for the addition of a new therapeutic claim to the
package insert of an established drug such as EDTA. No company will spend the
money without the ability to recover those costs in the marketplace. This lack
of FDA approval for atherosclerosis is commonly used against physicians by
opponents of chelation, although it has always been a fully accepted and common
practice for doctors to use medicines for diseases not yet approved for
marketing claims by the FDA. This is another blatant example of double standard.
A communication from Dr. John Parks Trowbridge, a physician using chelation
therapy in Texas, dated August 1986, illustrates very succinctly the
difficulties physicians have encountered when they offer chelation therapy to
their patients. The following illustrates how the system of repression often
works:
"In the last 90 days, at least 3 chelating physicians have been hauled before the Texas licensing board—1 lost license, 2 threatened. We've been put 'on notice,' through one who was threatened, that they were going to 'get' each of us, one by one."
Such legal harassment can bankrupt a doctor in order to pay the legal fees to
defend himself against ongoing attacks by legally constituted agencies. Due
process is a constitutional right but can be very expensive. The state pays its
attorneys and legal costs with public funds. An unjustly accused physician must
defend himself at his own expense. That is the basis for a tactic used by state
licensing boards to keep up the pressure until a targeted doctor can no longer
afford to pay for his defense. At that point, more than one highly competent and
ethical physician has submitted to injustice and agreed to stop using EDTA
chelation therapy in his practice, accepting probation and censure, just to end
the mounting legal expenses and other stresses of harassment.
The original motivation to discredit EDTA as a treatment for atherosclerosis may
have stemmed from ignorance of its benefit and arrogance in the belief that EDTA
was dangerous treatment and that it did not work. The motivation may have once
been to weed out fraud and quackery. With the development of enormously
profitable coronary artery bypass surgery and angioplasty, however, not to
mention peripheral and carotid artery surgery, it is obvious that many
influential groups in organized medicine and the hospital industry would suffer
greatly if EDTA chelation therapy, administered in physicians' offices at
approximately 10% of the cost, became widely accepted. That now seems to be the
most significant reason for ongoing attempts to suppress the practice and
clinical investigation of EDTA chelation therapy. What other explanation could
there be in the face of the large body of clinical and scientific data in
support of EDTA chelation therapy?
In recent years, mainstream medical journals have refused to publish the results
of research supporting EDTA chelation therapy for atherosclerosis, while at the
same time publishing many frivolous letters to the editor and editorial comments
criticizing chelation therapy [as well as flawed
studies deceptively
alleging to disprove benefit]. This ongoing editorial bias and censorship
have largely prevented ready access by interested clinicians and, researchers to
favorable clinical data. Most literature searches begin and end with the Index
Medicus or its electronic counterpart, the MEDLINE computer database. Recent
studies of chelation therapy have been published in less widely circulated
journals, many of which are not included in the Index Medicus.
Most physicians and medical students are not aware that only 10% of the world's
total biomedical literature [in all languages] can be found in those
databases.(11) If a physician becomes interested enough to do a computer search
of EDTA chelation therapy for treatment of atherosclerosis, he will find a
plethora of negative editorial comment and propaganda, but no negative data to
support that criticism. Most clinical data to support the effectiveness of EDTA
in treatment of atherosclerosis has appeared in journals that are not listed in
easily accessible references. [The most pertinent of that data is
summarized on this
website and republished in A
TEXTBOOK ON EDTA CHELATION THERAPY.]
The first randomized, double-blind, controlled study of EDTA chelation therapy
for treatment of atherosclerosis was conducted by Professor Doctor Schettler, et
al, in the clinics of the University Hospital in Heidelberg, West Germany, while
Dr. Schettler was Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and President
of the International Atherosclerosis Research Association. That study was funded
by Thiemann Pharmaceutical Company, manufacturers of the platelet inhibitor,
bencyclan, marketed as Fludilat®. Fludilat® is widely prescribed in Europe to
treat atherosclerosis. EDTA chelation therapy was compared with bencyclan.
It is unknown why a pharmaceutical company would fund a study of a generic drug
for which the patent had expired. It is possible that Thiemann believed AMA
propaganda stating that EDTA was ineffective. Why else would Thiemann put EDTA
up against their own Fludilatl®?
Thiemann did take precautions, however. When the grant was awarded, Thiemann
reserved the right, in its written contract with Schettler, to edit any
published reports of the study. Thiemann reserved the right to interpret the
final data for publication and to do the statistical analysis themselves. All
recorded data from the study were to be the property of Thiemann. It was agreed
that all data would be given to Thiemann at the end of the study. Such a
contract seems to eliminate the possibility of an unbiased report, and it
eliminates free access to the original data by other investigators.
A total of approximately 48 patients were treated, 24 in the Fludilat® group and
24 in the EDTA group. Disodium EDTA was administered in a dose of 2.5 gms in 500
ml 1/2N Saline. Treatments were given five days each week for a total of four
weeks. Each patient received 20 infusions. Only patients with peripheral
vascular disease who could not walk 200 meters without pain of claudication were
included in the study. Pain-free walking distance was measured before, during
and after therapy on a treadmill, at 3.5 km/hr with a 10% uphill gradient.
The measured results showed a 250% increase in distance walked before onset of
claudication pain in the EDTA-treated group after four weeks of therapy. By
comparison, there was only a 60% increase in the bencyclan group. Bencyclan,
however, is a drug proven to be of benefit in this disease and is widely
prescribed in Europe for that indication.
There were four patients in the EDTA group who experienced more than a
1,000-meter increase in their pain-free walking distance at the end of only 30
days treatment. Highly favorable data from those four patients mysteriously
disappeared when the final results were made public. Thiemann, of course, had a
legal right under terms of their contract to edit the final results and to
interpret the data in any way that suited them. Their final report contained
data that reduced observed benefit from EDTA by 72%, from 250% increase to only
70%. The fact that data from the best EDTA responders were altered would not
have been known if scientists from Heidelberg with intimate knowledge of the
study had not been shocked by what they considered unethical and dishonest
scientific conduct. Raw data from the study were personally delivered to an
official of ACAM for an independent interpretation.
The fact that a highly placed representative of American organized medicine went
to Heidelberg and met with Dr. Schettler while the study was in progress may or
may not be significant.
The study was reported at the Seventh Atherosclerosis Congress in Melbourne,
Australia, 1985. An attachment to the abstract of that presentation, available
at the meeting, contained a graphic plot of pain-free walking distance extending
out to three months after the end of therapy. By that time, even using the
modified data made public, the increase in pain-free walking distance in the
EDTA-treated patients had increased to 430% of the baseline, while
bencyclan-treated patients averaged less than half that much with no significant
improvement after therapy was stopped at 30 days. Nothing in the text of the
abstract described that graphically depicted observation, despite its great
clinical significance in proving the effectiveness of EDTA chelation therapy.
The report analyzed data only to the end of 30 days, when the bencyclan and EDTA
groups had responded equally. It is well known that full benefit from EDTA is
often delayed for up to three months after therapy.
When deleted data from the EDTA subjects with maximum relief of symptoms is
considered, average walking distance increased by more than 400% three months
following EDTA chelation therapy.
The data reported in Australia show only a 70% average increase in pain-free
walking distance in the EDTA-treated group (instead of the 250% increase at 30
days indicated by the raw data) and was compared with a 76% average increase in
the group treated with bencyclan. Even that amount of improvement is
significant. It is rare for placebo effect alone to exceed 33%.
The only patient death was in the bencyclan group. No serious side effects were
observed from EDTA. The reportedly negative results of this study received
widespread coverage in the news media, but the data were never published in a
peer-reviewed journal. Furthermore, the press release stated that "EDTA was no
better than a placebo," without mentioning that the "placebo" in this case was
Thiemann Pharmaceutical's very own Fludilat®, a proven effective drug.
By way of comparison, in the study which resulted in U. S. FDA approval of
pentoxifylline (Trental®), for the treatment of claudication, walking distance
before pain of claudication increased by only an average 25% over baseline with
treatment. Nonetheless, that small amount of improvement was considered
statistically significant and Trental® was approved for marketing by the FDA.
EDTA was more than twice as effective, even using the publicly announced results
of the Heidelberg study.
The intensity of the attitudes and the arrogance that has lead to a conspiracy
of this enormity will ultimately be responsible for its exposure and eventual
downfall. It might be argued by some that such a strategy was justified as a
means of eliminating widespread quackery. But who is to decide what is quackery,
and who is to give a self appointed group of physicians with vested interests in
competing therapies the right to assume that they alone know what constitutes
quackery and what is in the public's best interest?
With 800,000 people per year dying in the United States alone from
atherosclerosis and its complications, despite the best of high-technology
hospital and surgical care that is available, it is imperative that the public
be given the option to receive EDTA chelation therapy. It would be senseless and
even criminal for medical insurance companies to continue to deny payment for a
therapy which has the potential to greatly reduce long-term medical expenditures
by reducing the need for far more expensive hospitalization, surgery or
angioplasty. Savings to medical insurance companies with resulting reduction in
insurance premiums could be great.
A physician signatory to the Constitution of the United States of America, Dr.
Benjamin Rush, wrote:
"The Constitution of the Republic should make special provisions for medical freedom as well as religious freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic."
The chiropractic profession was the first to feel the sting of the CCHI. On
August 28, 1987, Federal District Judge Susan Getzendanner ruled that the AMA
led an effort to destroy the chiropractic profession by engaging in "systematic,
long-term wrong-doing with the long-term intent to destroy a licensed
profession." That was also the ruling in an anti-trust lawsuit filed in 1976.
The "conspiracy" described in this chapter cannot be dismissed and called
paranoid or a figment of someone's imagination. Chiropractic physicians were not
the only target. With ample funding from membership dues, enormous real estate
holdings, and advertising revenues from their many publications, supplemented by
contributions to the Council(s) on Health Fraud by the pharmaceutical industry,
food processing companies, and others, the AMA and organized medicine has led
efforts to discredit EDTA chelation therapy and nearly every other therapy that
is less invasive, less toxic, nutritionally oriented or more natural, when such
treatments have competed directly with mainstream physicians for patients and
health care dollars.
It is hoped that this information, together with results of research now
underway, will eventually cause the medical profession and victims of
atherosclerosis to become more open-minded and receptive to the benefits of EDTA
chelation therapy.