A chemist who has been marketing a substance originally developed to treat mining wastewater for use as a dietary supplement said federal authorities were ”confused” when they referred to the product as an unapproved drug, The Chicago Tribune reports.
The product, known as OSR#1, has been embraced as a treatment for children with autism by some doctors and parents.
On June 17, the Food and Drug Administration sent Boyd Haley, the chemist at CTI Science, a letter explaining that sales of OSR#1 violate the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
In an op-ed published in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Haley claimed that OSR#1 is a complex combination of naturally-occurring substances found in cranberries and meat.
But Dr. Arthur Grollman, director of the Laboratory for Chemical Biology at State University of New York at Stony Brook, told The Tribune that Haley’s explanations don’t make sense.
Grollman and other experts say any molecule can be broken down to chemical groups found in nature, but that doesn’t mean the molecules are natural or they are a sum of their parts.
The FDA declined to comment on the matter, stating: “We await the company’s response through proper channels.”
Haley has not yet responded to the letter.
J.B. Handley, a founder of the autism advocacy group Generation Rescue, told The Tribune that OSR#1 has not raised concerns. He said parents of children with autism who look to alternative treatments tend to rely on other parents for medical advice.
“We don’t trust the FDA or the CDC. We don’t trust you. We don’t trust most doctors. We only trust each other,” he said.
