If you were to tell that a renowned cardiovascular surgeon was instrumental in bringing chelation therapy to India, the first reaction would be disbelief, especially among his colleagues, here. Are not all surgeons dead against it, against chelation I mean? Obviously not, and Peter is the best example. I took both of my chelation exams with him, in the framework of the annual IBCMT meetings in Bombay and Goa, 2007 and 2008. His textbook on chelation therapy served as the basis for my studies: Clinical Metal Toxicology. As of 2011, it is in its tenth updated edition.
But what brought a successful cardiovascular surgeon with a stellar international reputation to change his views?
First of all, chelation and surgery do not really lend themselves to being turned into mutually exclusive opposites. They can very well complement each other. The question is always, what would suit a particular situation or patient best. Therefore, Peter did not change his views; they simply became broader. Even now, there are cases where he would endorse surgical intervention. He only ceased to see it as the cure-all, as which it has been and continues to be touted. However, as doctors and patients alike, of course we all know that there are no cure-alls, or don’t we.
So it cannot come as a surprise that Peter van der Schaar discovered chelation when in his surgical practice in his native Netherlands and at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Houston, Texas [yes, he practiced in the Netherlands and the USA simultaneously] he came across patients that, for one reason or another, he could not operate. That’s how he got started. He did not want to leave people untreated whom he could not help with surgery.
As early as spring 1983 he delivered a report on his first 111 consecutive patients at an ACAM [American College of Advancement in Medicine] conference, in the USA. We will quote him verbatim in the following, as published in Dr. Morton Walker’s book The Chelation Way.
“I had angiograms or Doppler studies available to me in most cases; furthermore, the peripheral vascular disease patients were classified into four classes to make judgments about their improvements with receiving chelation therapy. Those with the most severe intermittent claudication exhibited the best progress. My parameters indicate an average physical improvement of five times against symptoms for these chelated patients. Any that did not improve had refused to refrain from smoking, failed to keep the prescribed diet and didn’t take their usual oral chelating food supplements.”
“The forty coronary artery disease patients underwent coronary angiography and stress testing. The largest group of improvements occurred for those who suffered greatly with angina pectoris. The category of ten with cerebral vascular disease had been suffering from TIA, loss of memory, stroke, headache, hypertension, bad vision and dizziness. To be considered improved, three signs of symptoms had to disappear.”
”The patient with multiple sclerosis felt stronger and did not experience any deterioration in the last ten months, which he considers a definite improvement over the preceding years. The patients with Reynaud’s disease showed a definite improvement in peripheral blood perfusion when chelation therapy is continued at intervals of three to four weeks…”
The rest is history. Dr. van der Schaar focused more and more on chelation rather than on continuing to be a cardiovascular surgeon. He became the President of the International Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology, and is still connected with the organization as its Emeritus President. Presently, he works at the International Biomedical Center, in Leende, the Netherlands, serving as its Medical Director. Summing up his long and fruitful medical career he is on record for saying, "I now achieve more lasting results with less risk, enhancing the benefits of surgery, and often avoiding surgery, by providing chelation therapy for my patients."