Heroic intervention, high­technology diagnostic and monitoring methods, skilled nursing, intensive and complex medication and, where appropriate, surgery of sometimes mind­boggling complexity, all add up to a magnificent refinement of those many skills required for the saving of life after a sudden infarct, thrombosis or embolism, as well as other major causes of emergency circulatory mayhem.

But . . .

There is a darker side to the brilliant progress exemplified by such medical techniques, relating to an apparent lack of awareness of, or interest in, safer alternative treatment methods for dealing with pre­crisis conditions. Among these relatively inexpensive and safe preventive measures must be numbered chelation therapy. (It is also useful in treatment of coronary thrombosis ­ see below.)

Many of the drugs used by conventional medicine for prevention and treatment of such conditions do not address causes but rather tamper with symptoms (for example, drugs which lower blood pressure, while ignoring the causes of its elevation, or which interfere with calcium uptake without dealing with the long­term effect of residual calcification, or drugs which attempt to reduce heightened cholesterol levels, proving themselves successful at this task but leading to a higher mortality rate from other causes than were nothing done at all). Most such drugs create at least as many problems as they solve (compare this with the results of EDTA treatment on cholesterol as described below).

There is also strong evidence of the overuse of surgical methods, such as bypass surgery; indeed, a recent US survey indicated that almost half of bypass operations were not essential, even though this survey took orthodox criteria as to what was 'essential' as the yardstick.

And what­about transplants? The concentration of surgical experts and their back­up teams with high­tech, spectacular, surgical methods (such as are employed in transplant surgery) benefit very few (albeit often amazingly so), while depriving or delaying care for many more through such allocation of scarce resources.

In the USA, where chelation now has a 30­year track record it might be expected that insurance companies would be supportive of chelation therapy as a cheaper alternative to bypass surgery. And yet this not yet so. A recent legal action, brought by a patient against his insurance company (for refusing to pay his expenses for highly successful chelation treatment) led to some pertinent comments from the judge trying the case. The case was heard in Lorain County, Ohio where the judge, George Ferguson, ordered Aetna Insurance to pay the chelation expenses, stating in his judgement:

It is interesting to note that the Defendant (insurance company) would presumably pay for very expensive bypass surgery where there have been 4000 deaths in 300,000 cases, but is refusing to pay for chelation therapy where there have been approximately 20 deaths in 300,000 cases. Insurance companies are repeatedly urging second opinions where surgery is recommended. The Plaintiff was advised to have surgery on June 2 1987, at Elyria Memorial Hospital. Plaintiff obtained a second opinion from a duly licensed physician, followed the second physicians advice (chelation therapy), is alive today and saved the insurance company the expensive coronary bypass surgical operation. (Day vs. Aetna Life Insurance Company, 87CV12710, Elyria Municipal Court, Lorain County, Ohio, 1988)