Hope in the air

There's no scientific proof oxygen chamber therapy will cure such things as autism -- but parents see a reason to believe

Abby Stern says the hyperbaric treatments at the Hope Clinic are helping son Noah Stern, 6, with his developmental delays. (Justine Hunt/Globe Staff)

NORTH READING - The hyperbaric chamber is beige, about as big as a midsize sedan, and shaped like a capsule. Inside, Michele Eugene's son is fretful and restless. She can hear him moan.

"Scott, you have to listen to Mom," she pleads through a porthole. "You have 22 minutes left. You need to show how you calm yourself down."

Scott, 24, is in the hyperbaric chamber because his parents believe it will help ease the effects of his cerebral palsy and other disabilities. Eugene and Craig Meier bought the pressurized oxygen chamber to help him. Then they set up a clinic so that, for a fee, others may use it, too.

Their hyperbaric chamber business, the Hope Clinic, is one of as many as 300 that have sprung up across the country in the past decade, offering treatment for conditions ranging from autism to Alzheimer's. Breathing in highly pressurized oxygen, proponents believe, will rejuvenate injured neurons.

"The brain cells are damaged, so if you give them oxygen at a certain pressure level, they'll get up and do a jig," Eugene says.

There's no science to show that the brain works this way - that brain cells can lie dormant, waiting for extra oxygen to revive them. In the absence of evidence, insurers - who pay for medically proven applications of hyperbaric therapy in hospitals - will not cover it in "off label" clinics. In that context, most doctors consider it quackery.

But Eugene and Meier aren't quacks. They're parents. And they believe in what they're selling.

"I believe in hope," Eugene said. "That's the name of the clinic. We're offering hope."

For many parents, that's enough.

"You'd take your kid to Stonehenge in a rainstorm if there's a chance in the world that it would do something for him," said Abby Stern, whose son, Noah, 6, is a Hope Clinic regular.

An hour session in the chamber costs $150; clients are encouraged to have at least 40 sessions.

The use of hyperbaric chambers in hospitals is limited to data-proven treatments such as for pressure sickness in divers, certain burns and wounds, bone infections, and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Outside hospitals, hyperbaric chambers have a history of exploitation, said Dr. Daniel Deschler, who heads the Norman Knight Hyperbaric Medicine Center at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

"One of the problems of hyperbaric therapy is that over time, there has been this air of charlatanism about it, where anyone can offer it as a panacea," Deschler said. "It's something people could get access to without as much control within the medical community."

Stephen Riemers, an MIT graduate who owns a Virginia-based hyperbaric chamber dealership, says off-label clinics first appeared about 10 years ago, and now represents half to two-thirds of his business. He estimates there are as many as 300 off-label clinics nationwide, most started by parents of children with disabilities.

The word spreads on the Internet, which is where Eugene first heard about it.

As the parent of a child with cerebral palsy, traditional medicine offered Eugene few options. From the time Scott was an infant, she looked beyond the medical establishment, to alternative therapies: special diets, vitamin supplements, herbal remedies.

The idea of hyperbaric therapy seemed plausible. If it could speed wound healing by increasing the amount of oxygen available to injured body parts, she reasoned, who was to say it couldn't do the same for an injured brain? "It's oxygen - that's what our bodies need," Eugene said. "My reading and my research had me totally convinced."

In 1999, Eugene took her son to a hyperbaric clinic in Ontario - the closest one they could find.

But once in the chamber, Scott, who is nonverbal and cognitively impaired, screamed and clawed the walls in terror. Eugene had to struggle to keep him still, singing "Yellow Submarine" to calm him.

"My son physically fought me for over an hour," she recalled. "I've never seen him like that in his life. That's when you question yourself: How crazy am I?"

Her answer, she said, came at the end of the hour, when she saw a change in Scott. One arm is usually drawn tight against his body by muscle spasms; now it was dangling by his side.

Later, she said, she saw more profound changes.

"In school, they clocked him, and he could sit and pay attention for up to 45 minutes," she said. "This was a kid whose attention span had been that of a flea."

It's the kind of anecdotal evidence that draws parents and caretakers to hyperbaric therapy. But it's not scientific evidence.

Only one rigorous, double-blind study has explored the effects of hyperbaric therapy on children with cerebral palsy. The results?

"There's no evidence that it makes a difference," said Dr. Peter Rosenbaum, who holds the Canada Research chairmanship on Developmental Disabilities and helped evaluate the study.

The basic argument for why hyperbaric oxygen therapy is supposed to work is "cockamamie nonsense," Rosenbaum said. "At best flawed thinking and at worst flawed science."

But, he adds, "If people want to pay for hope, that's their business."

In 2004, Eugene and Meier remortgaged their home to purchase their own chamber. It came second-hand from a clinic; manufacturers also market smaller chambers directly to private buyers.

No sooner had Eugene and Meier made the purchase than they spotted a sign in North Reading advertising hyperbaric therapy. It turned out to be owned by John Magazzu, a realtor who had purchased a small chamber to treat his child, who has cerebral palsy, and had opened it to other customers.

They became partners. Eugene and Meier installed their giant chamber along side Maguzzu's tiny one in the North Reading storefront. Their son, Scott, continues to receive about three treatments a week there.

Except for the cost - Eugene and Meier paid more than $40,000 for their used chamber - there is little impediment to going in to the hyperbaric therapy business. Massachusetts law makes no mention of hyperbaric chambers, as is reportedly the case in most states.

The clinic, which draws about 10 clients a week, has yet to break even. Eugene and Meier recently lost their home to foreclosure.

One evening last week, Abby Stern helped her son, Noah, into the chamber. Initially a skeptic, she said the thinks the treatments are helping his developmental delays.

Still, she said, "I'm very aware that I go out every week and spend $400 on air. I'm literally buying air and writing a check out to 'Hope.' "

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at sirosenbaum@globe.com.