About the 'omnipotence' of the chelation therapy

In the eighties the 'method of treatment proven in many thousands of cases over 20 years' was transferred from the USA to Germany (enjoys a priori con siderable faith) using very dubious promises. It: was Clarke et al. who int roduced this 'therapy' in 1955. The dubious promise was to maintain that th e chelation therapy eliminates or alleviates symptoms in the case of the fo llowing illnesses: Alzheimer's disease, senility, schizophrenia, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, gout, renal calculus, apoplectic coma, gallston es, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, varicose ve ins, hypertension, failure of memory, scleroderma, Raynaud's disease, digit alis intoxication, intermittent claudication, diabetic ulcer, disturbance o f the blood supply, ulcer on the legs snake poison, impotence, emotional di fficulties, defective hearing, vision disorder. There is not the slightest proof of effectiveness for any of the listed indications. The burden of pro of lies with the supplier. Even in the case of the relatively often examined peripheral atheroscleroti c changes (claudicatio intermittens) there is no proof that EDTA has a grea ter effect than placebo. For coronary heart disease too there is no evidenc e for any usefulness of the chelation therapy beyond that of a placebo effe ct. Only controlled studies can help to improve the therapy in the sense of 'Evidence-based medicine'. Retrospective investigations on thousands of pa tients cannot 'prove' anything, although this is maintained again and again .