I believe that one day all doctors will accept chelation therapy especially the next-generation doctors because those who are endowed with knowledge and experience will stand firm on the truth about the good results of chelation therapy.

I thank Health Ministry Directo-General Dr Ismail Merican for considering chelation therapy to be regulated by the proposed Traditional and Complementary Medicine (TCM) Council.

Chelation therapy has been taught by the American College for Advancement in Medicine and the International Board of Clinical Metal Toxicolog. These organisations are not TCM outfits. They are teaching advanced medicine which have not yet been introduced in the medical colleges.

Yes, it is true as Ismail stated, that chelation is popularly used in many countries including Thailand which has invited us to attend their first conference on chelation therapy. Such conferences and written tests were conducted in Kuala Lumpur in 2005 and in Singapore in 2008.

The purpose of my writing is to suggest that chelation in not a TCM discipline. I have presented a paper on chelation therapy before Health Ministry officials in 2008 and at the end my presentation, a senior officer remarked that he will submit chelation therapy as conventional therapy and not TCM.

It is important to integrate chelation and not to separate it from conventional therapy. Some doctors who are not trained in vitamins, supplements and chelation therapy will usually dismiss these health aids and confuse the patients.

This dismissive attitude shortchanges patients because today so much scientific evidence validates the potentially lifesaving benefits of many nutritional supplements. On the other side of the medical practice spectrum, doctors who offer only alternative therapies to patients with very sick hearts may be foolishly denying them the full range of effective conventional care.

Patients are naturally always looking for less risky alternatives. But based on the condition of the patients, the practitioner must integrate because conventional or alternative therapy alone may represent misguided medicine.

For example, a patient having acute myocardial infarction or third degree heart block, or stage four NYHA failure must be in an ICU - not in a chelation centre. Smart medicine does not choose sides.

The existing law – The Medical Practitioners Act 1971 allows registered medical practitioners to practice integrative medicine and this has been defined and institutionalised by the Malaysian Medical Council.

Chelation therapy also has side effects like hypotention, hypocalcaemia, hypoglycaemia, hypokalaemia, brady cardia, negative inotropic action on the heart muscle leading to heart failure, kidney failure, allergy to ingredients etc..

Chelation solutions must be prepared as TPN (total parentral nutirion) under strict aseptic sterilsation and must be accurately measured with proper medical history and investigations.

Otherwise the patients will suffer. Such was the recent case of one doctor who had one infusion of chelation therapy on herself from a clinic and phoned me to say that she could not get up and go to work for 12 days.

Therefore I would like to suggest, as I have submitted to the Health Ministry, that chelation should not be separated from conventional therapy and should be practiced as integrative medicine but only in the medical clinics and hospitals under the supervision of registered medical practitioners for the safety of the patients.