Bradstreet published autism research, which he claimed indicated vaccines as a cause, in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, which is not indexed by PubMed. This research claimed that autistic children had a higher body burden of mercury, and that three autistic children had measlesRNA in their cerebrospinal fluid. The Institute of Medicine has rejected any relationship between vaccines and autism. Bradstreet treated an autistic child named Colten Snyder with chelation therapy on the premise of removing mercury from his body, in spite of the fact that hair, blood, and urine tests had failed to show he exhibited abnormal levels of mercury. Over an eight-year period, Colten visited Bradstreet's office 160 times. Stephen Barrett has stated, "It appears to me that Bradstreet decides which of his nonstandard theories to apply and records diagnoses that embody them," and describes Bradstreet's mercury provoked tests as "phony". Peter Hotez characterized Bradstreet's proposal to treat autism with chelation therapy as "dangerous." In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Bradstreet defended the use of intravenous immunoglobulin as an autism treatment, saying, "Every kid with autism should have a trial of IVIG if money was not an option and IVIG was abundant." Bradstreet also published research regarding the use of hyperbaric oxygentherapy for autism, some of which concluded it was ineffective, as well as a paper arguing that autistic children have an increased vulnerability to oxidative stress. Further treatments Bradstreet used on autistic children included the controversial protein GcMAF, with which he claimed to have treated 600 children. In an article for an anti-vaccine magazine, Bradstreet endorsed stem cell therapy as an autism treatment.
Bradstreet was found dead from a gunshot wound to the chest in the Broad River in Rutherford County, North Carolina in June 2015, after his Buford, Georgia medical office was raided by the FDA in connection with an investigation into GcMAF treatments. At the time of his death, he lived in Braselton and ran his medical practice in Buford. While the police ruled Bradstreet's death a suicide, several family members and anti-vaccine activists claimed he was murdered in connection with his criticism of vaccines. Bradstreet's son is autistic, which Bradstreet attributed to a vaccination his son received at age 15 months.
