Although I cannot give you the FINAL informed consent that you will adopt since that would require a license to practice law in all 50 states, this is an outline of what I feel needs to be covered. You will have to review whatever you develop as your final consent form with YOUR advisors who may want more or less. Some of this could be presented on an audio or videotape with you talking!

CHOICES BY THE NUMBERS

The diagnosis of increased body burden of toxic heavy metals must be clearly explained to the patient. They should know that the toxins you see in their report are similar to what we all carry. You will also, however, discover toxic workplaces and toxic homes and dangerous occupations where the NUMBERS seen on provocative testing will require detective work to find and remove the SOURCE of the heavy metal in order to protect others in that environment. Here, of course, you will be diagnosing heavy metal toxicity and/or poisoning because some patients will clearly come back with urine test results that are far worse than the average toxicity most of us have, and those cases will involve the potential for INSURANCE reimbursement. For the bulk of patients, however, this Heavy Metal Detoxification treatment plan, which you intend to offer, is entirely optional and elective, and health insurance should not be used.

It may be well for you to mention that "Other physicians may not be as aware of the adverse effects of low level heavy metal toxicity as I am because I have taken extra training concerning this particular subject. Therefore many other doctors would not bother to treat you for the level of toxic metals we have found you have from your provocative test, waiting instead for you to gradually become far more toxic, so that then you might be considered lead poisoned and might be eligible for insurance reimbursement for metal poisoning which is not what I believe you have at this time."

CHOICES OF ADMINISTRATION

Furthermore, we must inform every patient that the American literature primarily discusses giving this chelating agent using slow intravenous infusions requiring 1.5 to 3 hours of administration even when the generally painless form, the Calcium EDTA is given. However, I am relying on European experiences of more than 30 years, where they found that the shorter more rapid administration is safe as long as we watch your kidney function; and, now we are finding that it is MORE effective in helping rid your body of toxic metals than the slower administration was. There however may be some still to be proven advantages to the slow approach in term of anti-aging effects and in helping lower the level of calcium in some tissues in your body, IF we use the Magnesium-Disodium form of EDTA, which has provided tremendous benefits to the over 1 million patients treated in this country for over 30 years with that approach.

If you (the patient) are worried about potential harm to your kidneys from the more rapid administration of Calcium EDTA that is finally becoming widely used in the United States, you are free to elect to have your chelation administered as slowly as you would like, because at all times we want you to feel entirely comfortable. However, not only is the slower administration more time consuming but more importantly, I have decided to offer this quicker administration to my patients because there is documentation strongly suggesting this quicker administration of Calcium EDTA, given in conjunction with oral chelators, and even adding homeopathic medications to the treatment, is quite clearly far more effective in removing heavy metals than the slower method, which I may still offer my patients who may prefer it. I believe, however, that most of those benefits were the result of heavy metal detoxification, and now it seems clear that by combining long term ORAL chelation to prevent the toxic metals from getting back into your blood vessels, heart, brain, liver etc, that we can help many more people more conveniently and more cost-effectively by combining the shorter treatment with oral chelation.

CHOICES IN BENEFITS

When you ask why there has been such resistance to accepting the benefits of chelation therapy by mainstream medicine, I think we need to realize that, to some extent, the attacks against chelation therapy have been partially a result of the earlier claims about its benefits. When most chelating physicians, seeing the dramatic improvements in SYMPTOMS associated with poor circulation and not knowing about things like NITRIC OXIDE, thought that chelation must routinely be providing a Roto-Rooter effect. It was those beliefs and claims that chelation therapy was removing plaque from blood vessels, which occasionally does occur, but not often enough to be the main explanation for the dramatic benefits patients enjoyed even when their blood vessels remained seriously blocked. Since most chelating physicians no longer claim any Roto-Rooter benefits but rather focus on their easily proven ability to help detoxify the body by getting rid of heavy metals, which no one should be against as long as excessive claims are not made for the benefits of this use. Fortunately with over 1 million patients documenting the benefits from chelation, most physicians do not need to make many claims. In fact, it is obvious to most people that whatever is bothering them, treatment will work better in a less toxic body!

This use of chelation therapy for ELECTIVE PHYSICIAN SUPERVISED HEAVY METAL DETOXIFICATION, I believe will no longer raise the level of concern about chelation therapy that previously existed, especially since the protocols I am proposing seem to have major benefits for many conditions at affordable prices. Furthermore, the $29 million grant from the National Institute of Health to finally start to study chelation shows that the top scientists in the United States have largely abandoned their previous objections, where those who knew NOTHING about it alleged that it was both dangerous and worthless. Clearly, we are finally over that hurdle!

For more information and suggestions on Informed Consent, go to Agreement for the Advanced Metal Toxicology Protocol.