Dr. Garry F. Gordon's Response To ACAM
Update Article By Dr. Cranton

April 2003 ACAM update attacks rapidly administered Calcium EDTA as "unproven and dangerous" using CRANTON as their spokesperson totally ignoring obvious "benefit to risk ratio" for millions suffering from heavy metal overload!

Since anyone who tries push EDTA agrees that it gets out far MORE lead than slow drip administered EDTA, then where is the BALANCE to ACAM's unwarranted attack? Some of us want to use EDTA for what it is approved to do since the risk is all theoretical and the benefit is all real, then that is the type of decision doctors make daily, in conjunction with their patients. Since there are other proven ways to reverse vascular disease, like correctly administered Omega-3 oils, let's increase the correct use of EDTA for the millions who are now properly concerned about adverse health effects of lead etc.

Since it is now so well proven that Omega-3 oils REVERSE ("significant reduction") Arteriosclerosis¹; that even the FDA is permitting cardiovascular claims for Omega-3 supplements, it seems to me that now is the time to refocus Chelation therapy on its PROVEN benefit, namely heavy metal detoxification. The market for this service is practically infinite since the need for lead detoxification has been dramatically proven by the NEJM.^{2, 3, 4} This research has dramatically increased the need for chelation to essentially the entire population, and certainly anyone hoping to maintaining optimum IQ and renal function.

With the PROVEN benefit of ENHANCED heavy metal detoxification seen by those using the more rapidly administered Ca EDTA, particularly when given with the clinically proven oral chelation formula Essential Daily Defense, and now enhanced with homeopathic detoxification, the argument then becomes should it NOT be the decision of the fully informed patient. This information can be easily covered in the informed consent that, although the rapid administration is more effective at lead detoxification, there may be a remote unproven RISK from the more rapid administration.

Anyone trying the "push" form of chelation, particularly with at least 10 of the oral chelator (Essential Daily Defense), and measuring both urine and preferably fecal losses of lead etc. will find the YIELD is far greater (often 10 TIMES more) than that seen with the standard 3-hour drip. If the removal of toxic metals is the primary focus of the treatment, the increased BENEFIT will offset the remote RISK in the mind of most patients. Now that we also recognize that lowered lead levels may translate into increased blood flow through enhanced NO (Nitric Oxide) production, and that the oral formula recommended by Dr. Gordon for years, Beyond Chelation, has ALWAYS also provided Omega-3 oils in the highest concentration available, perhaps that explains the wide acceptance of the product called Beyond Chelation by physicians for many years. It is because they really document improvements in the majority of their patients. The use of oral and IV push chelation are described in the tapes available from the most recent two conferences sponsored by GRI and will be further covered in the upcoming Sept. 4-7 conference in Phoenix.

Since ACAM apparently does not need the increased revenue that the huge turnout a debate involving Dr. Gordon on this subject would bring to the next conference in Las Vegas, you will have to hear me at other conferences. This includes my upcoming conference in Sept 4-7 in Phoenix, or at the IOMA conference Nov. 19-20 in Las Vegas, Nevada. My website has over 3000 pages and over 500 references to back up my position. Or join the nearly 150 physicians who regularly participate in the late breaking news around the new chelation protocols on my email chelation discussion group open to all; simply e-mail Dr. Gordon and request to join the discussion group.

Why does ACAM shoot first and ask questions later?

Let's review the history of ACAM actions to see what I feel is going on with the CRANTON piece.

First, we have the fiasco with the shoot-out in Salt Lake City with many ACAM members leaving forever while ICIM grows. Then, in Phoenix 2002 with short notice, we have ACAM evict 60 attendees at the IOMA conference and they lose MORE members, and IOMA grows. By opening up the discussion about Rapid IV chelation with a strong ATTACK on it, I feel that ACAM will drive out all present or potential members primarily interested in helping detoxify a poisoned world as cost effectively and conveniently as possible.

This goal MUST include adequate knowledge regarding the oral use of Calcium EDTA given as well as its IV use in whatever time frame the doctor and patient decide is reasonable, recognizing that it is becoming clear that rapid administration markedly enhances toxic metal excretion over the results seen with what now appears to be the inadequate concentrations of EDTA achieved with the three hour method, which arguably MAY have some possible but unproven advantages in helping lower tissue calcium concentrations.

However, the 3 hour infusion ignores the new research, such as that reported in NEJM April 17 2003, where references to the contribution of low levels of lead to vascular disease, hypertension, lowered IQ, and renal failure potential that heavy metals, particularly LEAD, will help build widespread acceptance for the need for effective heavy metal detoxification. Clearly, there are better protocols than the 3-hour infusion for that and ACAM just banned one of the best.

Typically ACAM has never heard of that need in a democratic organization of consulting the membership, so they contact someone who claims the EDTA is DANGEROUS unless given in the vein, (drcranton.org) and, without even considering the need for ANY balance in their action and without scientific committee input or membership consensus, they are telling their membership how to practice. Not even AMA or CMA is tries that anymore!

Their unfortunate action is, thus, preventing their own membership from progressing onto safe ground where scientific consensus exists with the new uses of chelation therapy for ANYONE wanting to improve their health based on the now universal need for detoxification of heavy metals for improving outcome in the management of virtually any health issue. The American public desperately needs, safe, effective, affordable heavy metal detoxification, not just the now outmoded 3-hour drip protocol that I wrote 30 years ago, the usefulness of which is rapidly passing with the improved understanding we have of INFLAMMATION and THROMBOSIS, which require long term oral programs for maximum reduction in heart attacks and strokes. Those protocols now exist and are on my website.

Instead of learning from the history of ACAM, which I co-founded, the current leadership apparently sees all new thinking as a threat and have chosen to circle the wagons and try to defend what may be the rapidly dying 3 hour protocol, since there are more effective choices today if doctors focus on what is in the patient's best interest and learn to use adequate oral programs to deal with all the associated picture in CV disease like inflammation and hypercoagulability. Things like Beyond Chelation, Endozym Med with Nattokinase and FYI with some extra Essential Daily Defense for more aggressive oral chelation when needed and other approaches as described in some detail on my website now permit me routinely to not only prevent the heart attacks that the patient fears but even to see significant clinical improvement even if the patient has no possibility of getting any IV EDTA, slow or fast.

ACAM members using the new chelation approaches that I am teaching worldwide with tremendous success, are unfortunately now placed in needless jeopardy in the unlikely event that anything ever does go wrong with a patient being treated with the rapid IV administration of Calcium EDTA because of this premature and NOT balanced pronouncement by ACAM.

Although, I personally still hold in high regard each of the ACAM Board members as individuals, it seems when these fine folks get together to run the organization I co-founded and devoted over 10 years of unpaid service in building, ACAM clearly acts as though they have to attempt to discredit all of my ideas. ACAM is sitting on the greatest therapy around. I would like to see it survive, but now, just like other big, organized medical organizations (AMA etc.), ACAM has decided to just dig in and resist all change!

Cranton's raving statements claiming that anyone DARING to explore the rapid IV use of Calcium EDTA is practicing DANGEROUS AND UNPROVEN MEDICINE is the very charge that everyone has leveled at ACAM's chelating physicians for years!!

Dr. Cranton's position against Calcium EDTA when administered rapidly intravenously and with his continual attacks when it is consumed orally suggests to me, at the very least, medical incompetence. With the abundant proof of over 500 articles on my website proving that oral EDTA lowers lead, although perhaps only 50-60% as effectively as parenterally administered EDTA, how can anyone continue to deny this therapy to his patients and to try to ban it for our patients? When you consider the benefits of higher IQ and productivity for everyone taking this versus negligible risks, such a position is not defensible.

NEJM on April 17th publishes that essentially there is NO safe level of lead confirming Dr Gordon's position on this issue for over 20 years, which now ties into cardiovascular disease too!

Mainstream medicine is NOW recognizing there is virtually NO safe level of lead, meaning that competent physicians using the informed consent language on my website would be practicing scientifically and ethically to offer to lower lead levels on any patient they consult with almost regardless of the health problem.

This normally leads to good competition among health professionals to attract patients for what we now know is nearly a life-time program of lowering lead levels since bones take 7 years to turn over and without long term treatment, they simply retoxify all tissues. It makes safe, affordable, convenient lead lowering therapies a new growth industry and should be expected to lead to thousands of doctors looking to learn about chelation therapy, if for no other reason than to improve the behavior and IQ of their families.

The attack on Calcium ETDA will be great for the conferences sponsored by the Gordon Research Institute, IOMA (International Oxidative Medicine Association) and ICIM (International College of Integrative Medicine) who will all continue to teach and even certify in the field of heavy metal detoxification. Doctors can expect to help their patients now and, over time, some doctors will choose to become recognized as specialists by the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology formerly known as the American Board of Chelation Therapy, which I co-founded years ago with Charles Farr.

The rapid IV use of Calcium EDTA, which is documented to be producing excretion of heavy metals far more effectively than the same substance given too slowly for maximum detoxification is not occurring at the ACAM recommended 3-hour infusion rate. Those patients are being cheated if they are there to receive maximum heavy metal detoxification, which we can now show also requires concurrent oral chelation and ideally homeopathic detoxification products as well, but ACAM thinks everyone still wants to play with the now clearly unproven hope that the 3 hours might significantly help the level of calcium on their arteries and that somehow this will prevent them from having heart attacks and strokes. That is the unproven therapy, whereas lead removal that I am advocating is FDA package insert approved and therefore is should not be considered experimental medicine, particularly with the proof now that it could largely eliminate the need for renal dialysis. Yet ACAM calls my oral and rapid IV approach dangerous and unproven!

Yes it is true, I am saving the patients MONEY by reducing on average the our of pocket cost by 50 and if you consider saving 2 hours and 45 minute MIGHT have some economic value to patients, my approach is truly a major step in cost savings, making therefore the proven detoxification benefits of EDTA available to millions of more patients world-wide.

We all know that American medicine today has become far too expensive; I am doing something about it. Cranton's posture is that a remote risk justifies driving up costs and reducing access to millions of patients. He pushes a theoretical risk that might adversely affect 1 in 100,000 patients. We know that aspirin and NSAID kill over 20,000 a year in exchange for benefits that are far less important than those now proven to result from lowering lead levels. I believe that ACAM and CRANTON are clearly on the wrong side of this issue and stand ready to debate any and all of them anywhere as long as I can given 2 hours to present in detail what I teach at my conferences. All forms of administration of Calcium EDTA provide REAL benefits now and the real RISKS are so remote as to make Tylenol and Aspirin look like ARSENIC tablets, by comparison EDTA comparatively speaking is as safe as HONEY.

The data we have now proves how much more effectively those heavy metals are coming out with rapid vs. slow IV. I have ACAM doctors whose own lab tests at Doctor's Data showing excretion of Lead at 20 times and Mercury at 10 or more times the levels ever seen with any other protocol!

After all, as much as they try to deny it Chelation Therapy still appears to be one of ACAM's major reasons for existence. They are losing this battle if they try to limit the use of EDTA to MY old unproven roto-rooter concept when newer concepts like lowering blood viscosity and increasing Nitric Oxide production are here now, measurable, provable, and fitting current scientific opinion, and producing achievable results in virtually all patients without the pain and waste of three hours of people's lives.

I believe that this controversy over the new chelation properly handled, as a debate, would have given ACAM the opportunity of a lifetime to have a truly historic conference. Since I have not seen Cranton at an ACAM conference in over 8 years, his membership must be primarily to get the referrals. Interestingly I have not received a referral in years! I doubt that any organization that required annual attendance at conferences would be able to still count Cranton as a member in good standing. He does not have the references that I have to defend his position, so I hereby agree that ACAM can attempt to bolster his performance at a debate with as many helpers as it will take for him to get up the courage to debate me. Had they scheduled a debate or even a scientific hearing where both sides are fully heard on this issue of rapid IV or oral use of EDTA at their Washington, DC conference, they may have actually registered 400-500 actual doctors not just the "attendees" they now report which includes exhibitors and their staff. It will be interesting to see the actual DOCTOR count in DC, as our little Phoenix conference had 118 licensed health care professionals in attendance with only 22 carefully selected exhibitors allowed.

It is not too late, ACAM may still see the disastrous mistake they have made and, just like the California Medical Association after I forced them into a scientific committee hearing by threatening a law suit, ACAM could print a retraction of this ill-conceived condemnation of rapidly administered Calcium EDTA. Let them schedule an open debate where I select my panel of proponents and they select their panel of opponents on the use of oral and/or rapid IV use of CALCIUM EDTA. Give me the two hours uninterrupted to show the slides such as some from my IOMA Nov. 3, 2002 lecture, which you can hear or read and review on my website. Let the fun begin!

I have used the IV push and the oral chelation and have what I believe, am far MORE convincing documentation about the SAFETY AND BENEFITS than any protocol that exists to date.

This is not the time for ACAM to defend the rather old, and increasingly outdated, ACAM protocol. That task took nearly 8 months out of my life as a non-stop commitment while I was President of AAMP, the earlier name of ACAM. I wrote this to meet the demand of the Dept of Health and the Medical Board of California who said that without a protocol there would be no further chelation therapy allowed and, at the same time, I had to try to achieve consensus among the chelation doctors.

Many fought with me then about what they felt was too much testing of renal function because they already had the data in their charts that most patients renal function was improving and it is hard to defend spending millions of dollars in testing to save one person that could have an atypical idiosyncratic response to EDTA. We are health professionals and we are expected to make these decisions responsibly today. We used to require a chest x-ray on every patient admitted to a hospital so that the hospital staff was not needlessly exposed to TB. This was carefully analyzed and the number crunchers took this test out as NOT cost effective, yet clearly some are exposed to TB.

So, of course, if ACAM wants to be certain that the one in 10,000 possibility does NOT happen, and then we could do even more tests. With the latest on renal function in Archives of Internal Medicine⁵ pointing out that borderline renal failure is FAR more common than realized today and that serum creatinine is grossly inadequate at identifying these cases in our elderly population, you could perhaps even require all doctors to send their patients out for a nephrology consult BEFORE giving anyone IV chelation with calcium EDTA either by slow or fast IV. This, in fact, would only help prove how MANY patients we are already keeping from needing Dialysis. We know from the last 1 million patients we have treated that 99% of patient's renal function improves and in those cases where it did not, frequency and dosage seem to be the relevant factors. Furthermore, simply stopping the IV's permitted restoration of function in nearly every case unless the doctor simply ignored the lab tests!

The concept that Cranton espouses in the ACAM update that safety depends primarily on the speed of administration I believe is indefensible as there is also dose and frequency of administration. When we factor in COST of time for staff and loss of productive time for patients vs. benefit the justification for rapid administration is clear. The price of administration of the rapid vs. the 3-hour has dropped by 50% and the savings in our patient's productive lives makes this clearly the future course that chelation therapy in the United States will take in spite of ACAM.

Dr. Cranton's authority in the matter of protocol support or modifications is not so strong ever since he opined that EDTA is unsafe anyway EXCEPT intravenously! I was the one that wrote the protocol that with little change has gone on now for nearly 30 years without a documented death. When I had completed the protocol it was not changed until years later, largely by the efforts of Dr. Rozema.

I only allowed Dr. Cranton to help me after the protocol was adopted, on a simple task. After I had written the entire protocol and had gotten it adopted officially at an AAMP membership meeting, he inserted the references that I had researched. I was totally burned out after 8 months of non- stop efforts meeting with state officials of the health department and heads of ethics committees and Attorneys. I turned over my entire collection of references from over $15,000 of research (at that time, by now this has grown to over $100,000 worth of research and some 7000 articles) to Dr. Cranton to insert them in the appropriate places in the protocol. This act does NOT make him any authority on protocol modifications and, in fact, ABCT, now renamed the ABCMT under Dr. Bob Nash with the help of Ted Rozema, is far more up to date on any aspect of protocol modification.

ACAM's condemnation of the rapid administration of Calcium EDTA technically has NO teeth. However, since patients do love to sue when anything goes wrong and if someone dies, there often will be an attorney looking for any angle to put the physician in a bad light and give them the chance of collecting. This is the danger faced if you should still belong to ACAM and choose to use your RIGHT as a licensed physician to use any legally obtainable drug in the manner you feel is appropriate for your patient.

I recall that this attack by Cranton saying there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to support is just how all chelation enemies have tried to put down the use of Sodium/Magnesium EDTA for over 30 years now. However, since we do have the NEJM article, at least, that gives CALCIUM EDTA a proven benefit even if it's only proven to diminish the need for renal dialysis. However, once you have a drug PROVEN to do something good and at the same time this study suggests that the ONLY real toxicity issue we ever really were concerned about, names adverse effect on kidneys is, in fact, a benefit to even failing kidneys. This, therefore, proves that Calcium Edta has unbelievable SAFETY associated with its use. The patients they were treating all had started out with abnormal Creatinine Clearances. The improvements they found were primarily attributed by the research to lowering lead levels. Now, if that is true than anyone familiar with the published literature found on my website will know that oral EDTA tends to also do THAT SAME THING, but for a fraction of the cost.

NEJM on Jan 23 2003 publishes that Calcium EDTA SAVES kidney, not destroying them as chelation detractors have claimed.

However, in fact there really is NO proof that there is increased risk to the kidneys, as anyone with any background in pharmacology would know, even if they had only read the NEJM article of Jan 23 2003⁶ about Calcium EDTA. That article about the markedly decreased need for renal dialysis suggests that Cranton is all wet with his claims about increased renal toxicity, when it is clearly established now that Calcium EDTA tends to SAVE KIDNEYS not destroy them! His comment about the ½ life being less than one hour does not apply in any way to the patients we are concerned about! Those with impaired renal function take DAYS for the EDTA to clear!

Therefore, it is predictable that we will have doctors that will fight to the death to defend the need for the slow drip, even though our respected colleagues in Europe have collective years of experience proving this is not necessary and now massive defections here in American over to my side with many leading clinics switching entirely to the rapid infusion approach. We do not, however, need to throw the baby out with the bath water; the old treatment helped many patients over these years and those that want to stay with it must feel free to do so, but they should not attempt to interfere with those of us who want to switch having the right to do so without their labeling us as dangerous and unproven.

I recommend that those really interested in truth and science just go to my website and read for several hours. While there also carefully view the NEJM Jan 23 2003⁶ article by Dr. Lin of Taiwan in its entirety. You will see that Dr. Lin carefully collected the provoked specimens for an entire 72 hours - not just 6 hours as we do for SCREENING purposes. This will never be as accurate as 24 and even 72 hour testing when there is compromised renal function present, proving that the kidney reasonably will not see a large increase in toxicity when the material is given in 10 minutes or 30 minutes over the so called 3 hour treatment. There is NO proof that Sodium EDTA is as SAFE as CALCIUM EDTA, which after all does NOT perturb parathyroid function or calcium levels. The over 100 practicing doctors in clinical medicine are seeing improvement in their patients that the 3 hour drips were taking far longer to achieve and in some cases were failing entirely to achieve.

The reason the NEJM article collected urine for 72 hours is obvious to anyone with understanding of renal function. When it is compromised the kidney will NOT get rid of the EDTA that merely continues to circulate in the body until it is slowly cleared, no matter how fast it was administered! In fact, as an expert in this field, I consult on cases that are on renal dialysis and we give the EDTA the day before the chelation and let the dialysis clear it from the body.

Apparently ACAM and Cranton have never heard of the need for adequate concentration of a drug, which may be needed in order to achieve optimal effects with drugs. This is why we learned that 10,000 units of penicillin an hour for days for infections wouldn't work for infections that require 10 million units in 1 hour. That is the mistake made if we taking a marvelous drug and dribbling it in at sub-therapeutic levels!

I see these same denigrating words that we have heard from JAMA, being used against all of us using the new extremely effect chelation therapies, by Cranton in the last paragraph of his unreferenced and, thus, largely useless monograph, "I know of no scientific evidence that". He goes on to say that toxic metals such as lead are not the principal cause of atherosclerosis, which none of the proponents of the new chelation has ever claimed. That tactic by Cranton is what used car salesmen specialize in doing, bait and switch. I have never, in any of my extensive training, lecturing and writing about the value of oral and or rapid IV use of Calcium EDTA, claimed lead is the principal cause of anything but lead toxicity.

We know that the doctors who once try Calcium EDTA IV immediately want to switch at least some of their chelation practices over to this whether used parenterally alone or as I recommend for maximum patient benefit, always give parenteral chelators with concurrent use of oral chelators to prevent entero-hepatic reuptake of toxic metals.

I speak to high-level scientific groups that still look at ACAM as NON-scientific because ACAM has been afraid to clearly state for once and all time that we have such scant evidence regarding plaque reversal that we must drop that in the standard informed consent utilized in our medical practices. Yet, if we drop that excessive claim and focus on just the fact that the ONLY future for chelation therapy is HEAVY METAL DETOXIFICATION, we are immediately back to PACKAGE INSERT medicine with far less RISK for our members and, thus, better access to malpractice insurance and even increased probability of Third party reimbursement for our treatment.

Dr. Cranton distorts the facts about Dr. Blumer's published and non-published statements. They simply do NOT agree with what with what Dr. Blumer has discussed with me; go to my website and type in the word Blumer in the convenient SEARCH feature. Dr. Blumer told me that he did NOT see good results with less than 1.5 GM and DID offer 3 Gm to many of his patients based on weight. This is supported entirely by other leading European physicians personally known to me including the world famous Dr. J. Ionescu and Dr. Robert Trossel of Rotterdam, Europe's leading anti-aging specialist.

Dr. Cranton scorns Blumer for publishing his work on Calcium EDTA because he did not have angiograms pre and post on all of his patients, which Cranton and ACAM have never done. Yet, Cranton scorns Blumer's observational studies over 18 years documented with death statistics from one of the most organized countries in the world, because Cranton is so desperate to stop the new chelation movement that he feels he can safely belittle work based partly on soft signs like symptoms. Cranton suggests that such research is without value and that you cannot draw any conclusions from the reported symptomatic improvements seen in Blumer's chelated patients.

After all, ACAM's defending my old protocol is not based on that much more, as we certainly must survive providing symptomatic improvement to our patients and we do not have much data to support our old protocol with things like repeat angiograms or high speed Cat Scans.

Cranton seems very uncomfortable with the fact that Dr. Blumer's claim to fame is irrefutable evidence of nearly a 90% reduction in Cancer deaths and similar reduction in CV deaths over 18 + years in his patients! After all, this would suggest that the large groups of chelating doctors who have switched to the new chelation are on the right track. He apparently feels these successes reported by Blumer⁷ are being used in a misleading fashion to support the IV rapid push of Calcium EDTA, yet that was the ONLY therapy those patients received in the small town outside of Zurich where Dr. Blumer resides today and practiced so carefully for his entire lifetime.

Dr. Blumer does NOT need to prove the existence of cardiovascular disease in order to have meaningful statistics. If all of one group are alive and all of another are dead after 18 years and the only difference was a particular therapy that was given, who cares about the establishing a CV diagnosis, particularly when even Cranton and ACAM know that much of the basis for establishing the existence and extent of CV disease in a given patient is often both misleading and, perhaps, nearly fraudulent.

We all know that only a high-speed MRI scan (only available for research) or a PET Scan provides meaningful information and that angiograms cannot identify Vulnerable Plaque. So, what is the diagnostic work up that would make Cranton agree that perhaps some CV benefits were possible in Dr. Blumer's patients? What would get he and ACAM to acknowledge that there was NO HARM DONE by Blumer in giving RAPIDLY ADMINISTERED DOSES of CALCIUM EDTA to his patients and following them up for at least 18 years? What bunch of professors from a nearby medical school would visit Cranton or any Chelation Physician and agree that any of us are providing ANY meaningful benefit to ANY Cardiovascular disease patient? Does is surprise anyone that the Swiss professors did NOT endorse Blumer's work?

We always claimed that AMA's attack on Chelation therapy was simply out of economic self-interest. The AMA had to discredit anything that we did and said; now we see ACAM appearing to have taken up the same role that the AMA found itself in. They find they must try to stop progress in metal binding research and practice whenever they believe that it threatens status quo. This is so sad, as the doctors playing my Detoxification tapes to their patients report markedly enhanced practice incomes, from patients that previously they were not even attracting! This is NOT the end of chelation practices, but just the beginning.

Perhaps we should be happy that, at least so far, Cranton/ACAM have not chosen to claim that Calcium EDTA does not take out lead and, in fact, admit that it does that when given parenterally. But, I assure you, in spite of the over 500 references on my website of which easily 40 articles there show comparative lead excretions with IV vs. ORAL use of EDTA, I am even prepared now for ACAM to soon officially claim that oral Calcium EDTA cannot remove lead, or perhaps they will take Cranton's stance, that is DANGEROUS UNLESS INJECTED!!! Dr. Cranton attacked the EDTA suppositories with the idea that they might cause Cancer, yet he insisted that the EDTA was safe if given in your vein.

I had hoped that the American Board of Chelation Therapy that now has become the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology would be a welcomed coming together of all chelating physicians on a safe common ground. This new position by ACAM, if they do not back down, could make it difficult to recognize their training for doctors hoping one day to have recognition in this field by a truly independent Board of CLINICAL METAL TOXICOLOGY. Any useful training must be certain to adequately cover the use of all chelators, administered by all different routes and for all different types of heavy metal overload. I know that the ICIM chelation therapy course is striving to meet this laudable and ambitious goal and hope that ACAM will choose to do likewise.

ACAM teaching of its members should inform them that in Arizona we do not allow our chelating physicians to represent that chelation therapy has any serious plaque reversal potential. After 30 years of our collective continued inability to PROVE that plaque reversal routinely is achieved, we do not want to ask patients to sit for nearly 3 hours for 30 uncomfortable and expensive (in terms of productive time lost) treatments to get the " diffusion gradient" benefit Cranton alleges.

We know that with Oral Calcium EDTA alone we can keep the plasma and extracellular fluid compartments so low on toxic metals that all metals including mercury will simply by PASSIVE DIFFUSION alone, over time, be lowered in all tissues including brain. This concept leads to doing no harm in patients with chronically increased body burden of most heavy metals.

We also know that ACAM and Cranton seem oblivious to what I have shown all audiences since last July, namely the J of Kidney Disease July 2002⁸ that documented that all parenteral administered EDTA chelation TOTALLY FAILS after time since when you stop the IV's the tissues get retoxified. This is because it is not possible to unload the tremendous bone stores of lead that we all have (1000 times average greater than pre-industrial man). When you stop the IV chelation this lead will leave the bones and return toxic levels of lead etc to the chelated tissues over time meaning that the ONLY long term effective chelation benefits really require chelation for at least 7 years, the average turnover time for bone. But, if you were honest about it, even after 7 years if you stop chelating, your clean tissues would retoxify from the contaminated environment the Earth now provides all of us. So really some kind of chelation could be justified if it were convenient and affordable for LIFE!!!

Since the documentation on my website PROVES that ORAL Calcium EDTA on AVERAGE eliminates approximately 40- 60 % of the toxic metal load seen with parenterally administered EDTA, then who can continue to pretend that oral chelation is not a mandatory part of any chelation program if you think that heavy metal removal is an important PART of the chelation benefit.

Dr. Cranton says in paragraph one that Calcium EDTA is of no proven value, yet in March Ron Hoffman acknowledges the NEJM article on Renal function, which proves that Calcium EDTA has PROVEN VALUE, and with little difficulty, one might extrapolate that if removing lead from kidneys is useful, it might even be a useful therapy for the liver, brain, endothelium, and heart. ACAM's last update, by Ron Hoffman mentions the NEJM article of Jan. 23, 2003 but does not point out that this is not the substance used by ACAM doctors, and he totally failed to recognize the far reaching significance of the NEJM article.

If low level lead levels are what are impairing renal function in many renal conditions and that simple continual long term lead removal saves and even improves glomerular filtration rates, then in all likelihood there will be studies soon showing that the same facts would apply to all tissues in the body. And since Calcium EDTA saved renal function, then no one needs the discomfort of Sodium EDTA or Magnesium EDTA, if the only proven benefit we can prove we are providing our patients is lowering their Lead levels and thus restoring function to toxic tissues!!

Any other potential benefits are just experimental and as such should now be clearly labeled as EXPERIMENTAL and INVESTIGATIONAL when the informed consent is obtained. This is not what Cranton and ACAM wish to pretend, as his article claims that "The only method of chelation therapy proven to be safe and effective in clinical studies, backed by nearly 50 years of experience, is slowly administered infusions over 3 hours or longer of the full dose of disodium EDTA".

This is just a flat out unsupportable statement and the NEJM article proves that Cranton and ACAM are misleading their members and their members' patients by sticking to that old story! All we know is that Calcium EDTA is now proven to do good for kidneys and it is believed by competent scientists around the world that this was primarily due to the lowering of toxic metals such as Lead!!

JAMA⁹ finds that this same lead source, namely the lead contained in the bones of the bodies of everyone on planet Earth, will potentially lead to recognizable harm in the form of common problems like hypertension. For example, when a woman in menopause is losing bone and thus releasing lead from the bones into the endothelial compartment, it can cause enough lead to apparently inhibit vital endothelial function such as Nitric Oxide production with the development of lead related hypertension.

It is my contention that Cranton and ACAM are not in sync with the times we live in and that deleading must be affordably and conveniently made available to the public. ACAM and Cranton have an obvious conflict of interest in not letting this information become widely appreciated. It is sad that even the recent Townsend Newsletter had a report from a patient with hypertension who had seriously elevated Cadmium levels on his hair test and all the ACAM doctors he contacted insisted he had to go through their standard work-up and spend tons to even get to talk to a chelation physician.

I often see these toxic metal cases routinely respond dramatically the Essential Daily Defense formula that Dr. Morrison lead me to develop, but I know would even be greatly helped by simple EDTA/GARLIC based formulas available from many ACAM exhibitors. However, they are told that they cannot tell anyone on the showroom floor about ORAL CHELATION or they can be forcibly evicted and their overpriced exhibitor fees forfeited. This is no way to get ACAM favorable coverage from the NEWS or CBS 60 minutes as the good guys!! I am sad that politics and money seem to make us now as bad as the AMA drug driven doctors we all claim that we refuse to be.

My work with educating doctors around the world about the new uses of affordable chelation products, combined with the need now to chelate all children whose parents have read the NEJM and want their child to reach their maximal potential which means someone has to keep their lead levels as low as possible. This new huge demand might make Dr. Cranton's practice in Yelm, Washington very valuable. Being there affordably for all in his community concerned with toxic metal overload for their hyperactive or autistic children and those wanting detoxification to more effectively deal with virtually any health problem found in any community, or this new approach could be the end for his practice if he chooses to fight rather than switch. ACAM seems to prefer the fight!

The use of oral chelators with any parenterally administered chelator should become a standard part of any chelation protocol where the lowering of toxic metals in the body is a major focus of the therapy. Furthermore, the informed consent procedures used by all chelation doctors world wide should be improved to make it perfectly clear to all patients, that although thinning of blood (lowering of viscosity) and decreasing toxic metal load (which leads to improved NO production) MAY predictably help your SYMPTOMS of Cardiovascular disease in at least 85% of cases, this is not to be taken as a sign that you have reversed any plaque in your body.

This way patients will not mistakenly think they are now young again and go out and do foolish things with a total lifetime cardiovascular nutrition program designed to optimize all of their risk factors, and then all of ACAM can enjoy the low rate of heart attacks and strokes I have enjoyed in my practice since meeting Dr. Morrison in 1983 and adopting his work to my oral chelation formulas.

Some of the more careful observers have noted the many chelated patients who die of acute MI's, which provably in at least 70% of all cases of stroke and heart attacks, are due to blood clots, are entirely avoidable with things like Morrison's formula and Nattokinase based products. We have also learned that these cases at autopsy are routinely rife with arteriosclerosis, no matter how many IV Chelations the deceased may have taken. Those doctors who understand that chelation is not routinely significantly reversing arteriosclerosis realize that it is the avoidance of clots and inflammation that they must provide their patients if they are to avoid heart attacks and strokes.

Some of these doctors have tried to do this primarily with long term maintenance of the chelation IV's and it is our experience with these patients, up to 3000 plus in some dramatic examples, where we also see tremendous anti-aging effects! That has led us to realize that we all have been under treating with chelation therapy and that apparently more is better.

It seems there is not much potential for over treatment with chelation IF the doctor is knowledgeable enough in supplements to provide an adequate trace element replacement program where all trace minerals are abundantly present in available form. I personally have now been on less than 2 Gm orally, and occasionally, as high as 5-6 Gm for short term, for nearly 17 years.

Those physicians that opt to utilize both well formulated oral chelation products and enhance those benefits with periodic (monthly) IV chelation treatments, for those that can afford this, may be getting the best of both worlds. By keeping extremely low levels of lead and other toxic metals like cadmium while monitoring their patients at monthly intervals assures that patients are not drifting off the program and/or falling prey to the claims made by various supplement companies that do not provide effective oral products to accomplish safe blood clot prevention, chronic inflammation control, and continuous detoxification.

This detoxification seems to be the major benefit we are providing our patients. Continual Oral EDTA therapy, particularly when enhanced with other natural chelators like Malic Acid and Garlic, can maintain and even enhance the benefits achieved by Blumer with his IV PUSH chelation. We can readily see, however, that his IV push clearly does a far deeper cleansing of lead etc than any oral program could do, and does this conveniently as biweekly or monthly intervals for patients without losing ½ a day from work! Our planet seems to be so toxic today that if we could all afford to do this for all of our patients for a lifetime I have no doubt that we would show dramatic benefits, similar but less pronounced, to those seen in Switzerland by Dr Blumer. Today we also must deal with at host of ORGANIC toxics in addition to the heavy metals.

I hope that some of the doctors, however, will offer their patients a program where, after they see the initial benefits of chelation therapy, they never lose those benefits because they work out an affordable long-term plan for their patients for the rest of their life. Ideally this would include at least monthly IV Chelation by push with Calcium EDTA.

So sad that the organization I spent over 10 years of my life trying to build is now so afraid of me and of change. Change is what medical progress is based on, constant change as we learn new things. We all remember getting out of medical school and learning that 50% of what we were taught was incorrect; now it appears that ACAM has forgotten that.

The Future of the New Chelation

If you want to see where the future of chelation is going, those of you with no vested interest in the old chelation, just look at www.rheologics.com and understand that anyone knowing EDTA 's effect on rbc and platelet membranes readily understands that low doses of EDTA alter favorably these indices. I strongly encourage you to purchase Dr. Kensey's talk and workshop from the April 3-6 Phoenix conference I just put on and you can ride the wave of being among the first to learn what chelation really does even beyond the Lead lowering effects. Learn that blood viscosity determines life and death in vascular disease and that by simply lowering it adequately there are NO MORE HEART ATTACKS!!

I hope for ACAM's sake that they don't fight this too!! This is being accepted now at the highest levels in organized medicine! This is the future and testing blood viscosity in your office will allow you to not lose your patients or your family!!! This way you can determine for sure which products work and when the dose is adequate and if the patient is really taking it!!

This is fun and it is the future in ENDING BYPASS SURGERY, my personal passion. The new approaches to Chelation therapy that I teach along with enzyme therapy such as Endozym (the world famous Wobenzym formula without Pancreas and with the new competitor to Coumadin, Plavix, aspirin etc. called Nattokinase), and lowering Inflammation (with products that really lower C- reactive protein safely and effectively such as FYI).

Then, simply learning about how to deal with total body PATHOGEN BURDEN (see my website for Protocol for Chronic Infection and article on body burden can be found at: www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden) and then for those with early onset CV disease - look to www.thrombocare.com and become knowledgeable about the full spectrum of natural products that are truly anti-platelet and anti-coagulant with almost no adverse effects, so they can be taken for life!

These simple changes in the program will help the new concepts I am teaching about CHELATION THERAPY find their proper place in the total practice of medicine for the betterment of mankind living on a polluted planet. Even better results can be accomplished with a more comprehensive understanding of vascular biology, and things like Nitric Oxide production and how low levels of toxic metals impact on endothelial function.

ICIM is not afraid of this progress in the use of chelating agents and thus, I have presented over 14 hours of material there over the past years. This led indirectly to the top chelation researcher in Brazil, Dr. Efrain Olszewer, looking into the use of Calcium EDTA. As reported at the recent ICIM chelation workshop, he has only chelated some 35,000 patients with the old protocol and on his first 30 plus patients with heart disease reports that he finds the new Calcium EDTA is working better and faster! This is the same that we hear from all the doctors following my suggestions for this exciting new approach to chelation.

Tapes from ICIM are available from 1 800 now tape - INSTATAPE - Greg Stavish, for those that want to learn the whole story of my extensive training at ICIM on the new chelation concepts. There are also all the tapes from the conferences that I sponsor, like last October in Phoenix and April 2003 in Phoenix. We have these at respectively $50 for 14 hours of tapes from October and $100 for 23 tapes from the combined IOMA-GRI conference. The tapes are providing far more comprehensive information and the new developments where NO MORE HEART ATTACKS will be the rule. And also in every field of medicine from Alternative Cancer therapies that work to information on all aspects of heavy metal toxicity including autism and hyperactivity to aging. I believe that this information will permit metal detoxification (Chelation) to have the major impact on the total practice of medicine that it can provide, not just a partial answer to helping heart disease patients!

So, yes, I see tremendous success in even a higher percentage of my patients today, faster and more cost effectively with the new concepts that, unfortunately, require relearning and retraining. I believe that safe, affordable, ORAL EDTA based products should be a part of any rational approach to the, finally recognized, epidemic of low level lead toxicity, that is contributing to the epidemic of chronic degenerative diseases we all see. Now, for anyone that has studied the kinetics of metal detoxification, the work of Dr Bruce Shelton by adding Homotoxicology to my program he is finding all metals including mercury are clearly being dealt with safely and adequately.

The logic of oral EDTA detoxification safely taken for years and enhanced by periodic rapid IV administration is getting such results and attention that it is leading doctors who never would have used the three-hour protocol to finally add chelation to their practices. The rapid and often dramatic results they report to me make them want to learn more. When you realize that everyone has significantly higher levels of toxic metals than we did 500 years ago and that we all can be healthier by lowering these levels, the ease and cost of doing this become important issues. The potential market is, however, too vast for this to realistically be covered by third party insurance except in the cases where work history, physical and lab tests etc all support the diagnosis of being significantly more lead burdened than the rest of us.

Of course, ICIM and IOMA will both be happy to provide an organization for those members now finding it necessary to simply quietly let their ACAM membership lapse or resign in disgust. I would hope to see them change so that both ICIM and ACAM become healthy vibrant organizations competing to provide the most benefits (knowledge and training- not just referrals) for their members for the least money. ACAM, who by their actions over the years, seem to be primarily run for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many and whose directors have consistently seemed unwilling to evolve and grow with new knowledge that might cause their members to have to evolve into newer applications of chelation, not just 30 IV over 3 hours for all heart disease patients.

ACAM's executive committee in this act seems to be desperately trying to hang on to the past, defending an outdated protocol that fails to adequately address either thrombosis or inflammation; thus condemning those relying on the 3 hour drip to needless failures. I continue to be appalled when chelating doctors lose patients and I lose friends in alternative medicine to entirely preventable Heart Attacks.

These heart attacks and strokes are simply not happening in my patients, and Enzymes like Wobenzym Endozym Nattokinase etc have made heart attack and stroke avoidance even in high-risk patients feasible. Most of you still have no idea how completely serious I am when I say - if you stop the clots you stop the heart attacks. Now we also have dramatic new evidence that if you lower the viscosity you stop the disease. Everyone acknowledges that EDTA lowers the viscosity of blood so all of Dr. Cranton and ACAM's ravings will soon die out, as these facts become widely known. These things can be safely accomplished orally and oral chelation is the basis for much of this and the long term oral use of EDTA is the breakthrough of our time, not the certain death that Cranton's website conjures.

We have just enjoyed the largest turnout of health professionals ever at the combined conference of IOMA and GRI. This is without providing CME credits, which all truly enlightened doctors recognize are readily obtainable, on-line from your home and are not a great reason to waste precious money at a conference unless it is teaching you things that change the health of your patients and your practice when you get home! I find at my conferences that leading alternative care practitioners are not wasting their time chasing CME's - they come because they want to learn answers they can employ now! My speakers have valuable information and many worthwhile speakers may have some economic involvement in what they are expert in, and I think we should not discriminate against them over that. This is the format of the GRI conference in Phoenix Sept 4-7 2003. My speakers fill in all the dots from the podium and our attendees get all the information on the latest ideas that work now and all the information, name of product, dose, etc. ACAM has done well to obtain CME credit for those that only want to half learn things, and pick up some credits, but conference content seems to have suffered badly.

Virtually everyone following my suggestions is reporting tremendous excitement and success with these newly evolving chelation approaches of oral and rapidly administered IV Calcium EDTA. This is because it appears that with oral use of sulfated polysaccharides and EDTA we can help control viscosity and hypercoagulability and with other products like those containing predigested cats claw, Wobenzym, Endozym, Oil of Oregano, transfer factor, High dose Ascorbic acid etc. we can help control chronic inflammation.

These oral products are vital in enhancing the effectiveness of the IV pushes, but they are working so well that we find we need far fewer of the old 3 hour treatments to see even better results, far faster. By adding OXIDATIVE therapies to practices before the rapid IV Calcium EDTA and the new effective oral products puts an entire world of new and highly effective therapies in the doctors' hands.

Of course, it helps that we are beginning to understand the etiology of chronic degenerative diseases better and so we finally are starting to have the knowledge to know what we are doing and why. This new information has replaced the old concepts that if 30 of the three-hour chelations haven't helped your patient, just give them more of the same. Now we can expect very close to 100 % success because we are really individualizing the program based on the patient's needs.

*This rebuttal by Dr. Gordon was in response to the April ACAM update and the many e-mails similar to the one below.

Dear Gary, I've been using your CaEDTA push for the past 3-4 months. Started on myself and I'm now treating patients. I average 21/2-3 gm. per dose over 3-5 minutes. I read Cranton's article on "Rapid injection of CaEDTA: Dangerous and unproven", in the ACAM update April 2003. He brings out some points that are a concern. Can you please comment?

C. P., D.O.

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