Jonathan Collin, MD
Garry Gordon, DO, MD, advocate and educator of chelation therapy, passed in 2021. Gordon was a founder of the American Academy of Medical Preventics (AAMP) in the 1970s, which provided education and fellowship to physicians about chelation treatment. AAMP eventually became the American College for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM), which continues training physicians about chelation. (Other associations also provide chelation training such as the International College of Integrative Medicine (ICIM)).
Chelation therapy was not accepted by the FDA during the 1970s as a treatment for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease; as such it was considered unacceptable by most state medical boards. Garry Gordon and colleagues in AAMP initiated and collaborated on small studies to demonstrate effectiveness and safety of intravenous chelation treatment.
To standardize chelation therapy Gordon developed with others a protocol for the safe and effective administration of i.v. chelation that has been formalized as part of the AAMP and ACAM certification program. Eventually i.v. chelation therapy training led to specialty status, Diplomate in Chelation Therapy, accomplished after written/oral examination and completion of supervised administration of chelation therapy. A board for the chelation therapy specialty was established; it was not recognized by the national board of medical specialties. However, Gordon’s work in these endeavors was the seed to establishing the legitimacy of chelation treatment ultimately leading to two large NIH studies of i.v. chelation therapy done from the mid-2000s and ongoing today.
Garry Gordon received his Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) from the Chicago College of Osteopathy in 1958. He received his honorary MD degree from the University of California in Irvine in 1962. He completed a residency in radiology at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in San Francisco in 1964. In the late 1960s Gordon’s clinical work shifted to practicing chelation and related fields of study including metal metabolism and toxicology. Ultimately, he became a medical advisor to Mineral Lab in Hayward, California, which pioneered methodologies to study toxic elements and trace minerals. In the 2000s Gordon was instrumental in setting up a homeopathic medical board in the state of Arizona and was awarded an honorary homeopathy degree. Gordon was the medical consultant for the supplement company, Longevity Plus.
I met Garry Gordon for the first time at an AAMP meeting in Dallas in the spring of 1977. For me chelation, homeopathy, nutritional medicine was all new—I was involved in internal medicine training. Garry was very effusive and enthusiastic on the chelation therapy process. At the convention I met doctors not just in the US but from Mexico and internationally who were all beginning to learn about chelation. From that year forward I would attend the symposia that AAMP would offer twice yearly. Gordon was always there sitting in the front row at lecture time and walking the exhibit hall during breaks to talk things over with “old timers” and the new docs.
Eventually I became one of the old timers, and Garry and I would share not just the latest and greatest developments in chelation medicine and lab diagnostics and supplementation, but also the politics and legal challenges facing doctors doing chelation. Unfortunately, many doctors, including the one I mentored with—Leo Bolles, MD—faced medical board investigation and criticism for doing chelation. One of the most difficult aspects for chelation practitioners was fending off attacks from “quackbusters” like Victor Herbert, MD.
Gordon was always involved in offering his strategies to deal with these individuals and medical boards. Getting together with Garry and colleagues was always an energizer for me. Garry reminded me that while the quackbusters wanted to cancel chelation, that chelation therapy did have merit and practitioners provided a service that was not being met by conventional medicine.
One of my colleagues, Dr. Michael Gerber, MD, HMD, shares these memories of Gordon: “I remember Garry coming to our office in Mill Valley, California around 1975, and extoling ACE, adrenal cortex extract, for schizophrenia. We have continued to use a version of ACE these last 48 years for adrenal support. Garry was always bigger than life and was a point man for bringing EDTA chelation to a generation of doctors and tens of thousands of patients for heavy metal detoxification and treatment for atherosclerosis.
He founded AAMP, the American Academy of Medical Preventics, with his brother Ross Gordon, MD, and Harold Harper, MD, which morphed into ACAM, the American College of Advancement in Medicine. He also launched Mineral Labs, a laboratory to test heavy metal toxicity. Garry and Harold Harper compiled the Reprints of Medical Literature on Chelation Therapy, which contains 600 pages of research dating back to 1947 with 75 scientific studies of EDTA chelation therapy.
He was a mentor and friend for decades. His leadership in the realms of chronic disease prevention and healthy aging will be felt for generations. Bless his great work!”
Published August 12, 2023
About the Author
Dr. Jonathan Collin is an MD focusing on adult medicine with emphasis on functional and alternative medicine. His practice in Kirkland and Port Townsend, Washington, offers intravenous chelation and high dose Vitamin C with nutrients. Collin has been in practice since 1977.
Dr. Collin is the founder and publisher of the Townsend Letter and the Townsend e-Letter. The Townsend Letter print magazine was published from 1983 through 2022. More than 450 issues of the Townsend Letter have been printed and are available for purchase. For an index of the publication, visit https://www.townsendletter.com.