Flushing Out Lead, Metals With Chelation Therapy

April Fulton:

Sherri Oliver lives in a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It’s a two-hour bus ride to get to the Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital in Baltimore — and she has brought her daughter, Katie Dail.
Katie has dangerously high levels of lead in her blood.
She’s a fast-moving first-grader with copper-colored hair. Katie has bright brown eyes but has trouble making eye contact. She also has autism — and she doesn’t really speak, but she makes a kind of whooping sound when she’s happy.
But Katie is not here for autism treatment. The treatment she has been getting — chelation therapy — is to get her lead levels down. Although hospitals offer the treatment, some desperate parents are turning to home-based chelation kits and over-the-counter pills, which doctors say can be more dangerous.