A search of medical journals unearthed no papers published about OSR#1, though the compound’s industrial uses for toxic cleanup have been explored in publications such as the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Boyd Haley, who is president of the Lexington, Ky.-based company that produces the OSR#1 supplement, acknowledged its industrial origins but calls his product “a food” that is “totally without toxicity.” He said he has been taking the supplement for nearly three years.

“Look, I put myself on the line,” he said. “I have taken 250 milligrams per day, on the average.”

Federal law requires manufacturers to explain why a new dietary ingredient reasonably can be expected to be safe. The Food and Drug Administration told the Chicago Tribune that Haley had not submitted sufficient information.

In an interview, Haley said that the compound had been tested on rats and that a food safety study was conducted on 10 people. Asked to provide documentation of the studies, he stopped communicating with the Tribune.

Experts expressed dismay upon hearing children were consuming a chemical not evaluated in formal clinical trials for safety, as would be required for a drug prescribed by doctors.

Ellen Silbergeld, an expert in environmental health and a researcher studying mercury and autism at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said she found the sale of the chemical as a supplement for children “appalling.”

Antioxidant expert Dr. L. Jackson Roberts, a pharmacologist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said, “I would worry a lot about giving anything to a small child that hasn’t been scrutinized for both safety and efficacy by the FDA.”

OSR#1 supplements are one of many risky, unproven therapies given to children with autism by doctors who say they can successfully treat the disorder, which has no cure and very few proven treatment options. Last year, Chicago Tribune reporters examined alternative treatments for autism and uncovered a trail of junk science and false hopes.

Haley, a retired professor at the University of Kentucky who once was chairman of the chemistry department, has spoken at autism conferences promoting alternative therapies. His fiery presentations connect autism and the mercury preservative that was once a common part of childhood vaccines, a proposed link that numerous scientific studies have failed to confirm.

“We need to get mad,” he told an audience of hundreds at a national autism conference in Chicago last year.

One of the most prominent autism groups, Generation Rescue, once named him to its Hall of Fame, citing his “clear, thoughtful, feisty testimony and writings” about mercury.

On the Age of Autism blog, parents have hailed him as a hero for his new supplement, which Haley said “easily 1,000 people” have taken.

“Boyd Haley should be ‘Man of the Year,’ ” wrote one reader of the blog.

Stagliano, the Age of Autism website’s managing editor, declined to comment. Read more here.

###

New from the Children's Health Defense imprint of Skyhorse Publishing: Down the COVID-19 Rabbit Hole: Independent Scientists and Physicians Unmask the Pandemic

A detailed examination of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a strange way, we can thank the overreach of the Covid 19 pandemic for opening the hearts (so many damaged by  myocarditis) and minds of the American public who really hadn't given much thought to the autism epidemic. That's about as grim as thanking cancer for long sought weight loss, but here we are. Your purchase from our link supports Age of Autism. Available in hardcover and on the free Kindle app.Donate - Thank You