SHOULD scientists test fringe therapies? It鈥檚 a tough call: testing puts patients at risk, yet it is the only way to prove something doesn鈥檛 work. For a fringe autism treatment, not testing is the lesser evil, the US National Institute of Mental Health has now decided.
The NIMH had been , a controversial treatment in which heavy metals are removed from the blood of children with autism. Some parents subject their kids to chelation because they believe that autism is caused by mercury in vaccines, but scientists dispute the mercury-autism link. Last week the institute cancelled the trial after reviewing .
Chelation proponents cried foul and claimed that the decision was based on a desire to cover up vaccines鈥� link to autism. Scientists have backed the NIMH decision. 鈥淭he anti-vaccine mercury militia is not a group persuaded by scientific evidence, and so performing a scientifically and ethically dubious study to satisfy them is a fool鈥檚 errand,鈥� says Steve Novella, a neurologist at Yale University who writes a .
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鈥淧erforming a dubious study to satisfy the anti-vaccine militia is a fool鈥檚 errand鈥�
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