Province should fund ‘liberation therapy’ - Wayne Mogensen

(3) Comments | Print | Report a typo | Contact the Editor
Sep 08, 2010- 4:45 PM

By: Guest Columnist

 Editor’s note: This letter was originally sent to Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an affliction in which scarred neurons in the brain and spinal cord lead to fatigue, intolerance of heat, incontinence, sometimes blindness and increasing disability.

For years, it has been looked on as an incurable disease, although many healing approaches have been tried by the medical profession.

Last year, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, director of the Vascular Diseases Centre at the University of Ferrara in Italy, published research showing that blocked or malformed veins responsible for draining blood from the brain were a factor in many cases of MS.

These blockages cause damaging iron buildup in the brain. MS was therefore treatable by vascular surgery, notably inserting a balloon in the brain to resolve the blockage in a procedure known as angioplasty.

Those of us with MS were very excited by this news, but many neurologists, who found it difficult to believe this supposedly autoimmune disease could be dealt with by a vascular surgeon rather than a neurologist, put a complete stop to the procedure and research into it (in Ontario).

Because of the impossibility of obtaining what should be fairly inexpensive vascular surgery to treat MS patients in Canada, many sufferers have had to spend large sums to travel abroad to Poland, Bulgaria, India and Costa Rica in order to obtain treatment in countries where the Zamboni procedure is accepted. Patients who have had the procedure report feeling an immediate change for the better.

This summer, the governments of Saskatchewan and Manitoba have announced that they would finance clinical trials of Dr. Zamboni’s “liberation therapy.”

Would it not be possible for the government of Ontario to see beyond this battle by neurologists to defeat a vascular treatment of a disease which affects thousands of your fellow Ontarians and their families?

This battle of the specialists for exclusive rights to the treatment of our affliction should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress in healing.

Please allow us to obtain treatment at home. If malformed veins can be repaired by a vascular surgeon, why should we not be allowed to obtain treatment in Canada?

You have helped me in the past, and I am hoping that you can help me again by allowing me to obtain the Zamboni liberation treatment in Ontario, either funded by myself, or even better, by OHIP.

Wayne Mogensen
Greater Sudbury
 
(3) Comments | Print | Report a typo | Contact the Editor

Reader's Feedback

Editor’s Note:

NorthernLife.ca may contain content submitted by readers, usually in the form of article comments. All reader comments and any opinions, advice, statements or other information contained in any messages posted or transmitted by any third party are the responsibility of the author of that message and not of NorthernLife.ca. The fact that a particular message is posted on or transmitted using this web site does not mean that NorthernLife.ca has endorsed that message in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message. We encourage visitors to NorthernLife.ca to report any objectionable content by using the "report abuse" link found in the comments section of this web site.

3 Comments

  • Lloyd 9/10/2010 12:11:17 PM - Report Abuse

    From the Canada News Centre:
    "Ottawa, August 31, 2010. On Thursday, August 26,2010, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CHIR), in collaboration with the MS Society of Canada, convened a meeting of leading North American experts in multiple sclerosis (MS) to identify research priorities for Canada in this area. Today, at a press conference in Ottawa, Dr. Alan Beaudet announced the outcomes of the discussions and shared the recommendations......
    "There was unanimous agreement from the scientific experts that it is pre-mature to support pan-Canadian clinical trials on the proposed "Liberation Procedure", said Dr. Beaudet. There is an overwhelming lack of scientific evidence on the safety and efficacy of the procedure, or even that there is any link between blocked veins and MS."

    The news release goes on to say how the expert working group and the MS Society, will closely collaborate and monitor research already underway elsewhere in the world; and if/as appropriate, will then consider clinical trials in Canada.

  • skndstry 9/10/2010 11:01:38 AM - Report Abuse

    So we shouldn't do our own, just piggy-back on the hard work of others like a bunch of freeloaders while people here slowly deteriote and die from MS while there is an experimental treatment that has had demonstrable effects on many people who have undergone the treatment?!

    Really?

    You don't really understand how this works, do you? Look to PET for an example of how a government will white wash research results for proven treatments and modalities. If they don't want to pay, THEN they'll study it themselves after it has proven successful in another jurisdiction. They will NOT simply pick up the treatment based on the other results. This is how the game is played when governements DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR LIFE SAVING TREATMENTS OR TESTS. It is really that simple.

    Besides Lloyd, for a guy who wants to cite "emotions or media frenzy", you've done a pretty good job of simply regurgitating what you've read in the paper on the side that supports your argument.

    But what it should have read was "Recently, a small panel of neurologists, NOT vascular experts or radiologists, all of whom have close ties to pharmaceutical companies, determined that we should not study this therapy. There is no agreement whatsoever that this was a thorough and careful review, nor was the information they used, or any member of the actual panel, objective or relevant."

    Zamboni's work has had some miraculous outcomes for people who had zero quality of life and were facing a certain, miserable death.

    My guess is you don't suffer from MS, and are more worried about your taxes than those who are. But you'd do well to consider that the total cost of treating these people for their many sympathetic morbidities and disability is MUCH more expensive than a procedure that uses a safe and proven surgical technique (angioplasty), simply applied to a different artery.

  • Lloyd 9/9/2010 10:55:12 AM - Report Abuse

    Recently, prominent Canadian medical researchers and other organizations directly involved in MS and medical research, have determined that proceeding with trials here is not on. These experts - thankfully, make such decisions based on thorough and careful review of objective, relevant information; instead of based on emotions or media frenzy. Besides, other countries/jurisdictions are going to be doing the research, which can be shared with the rest of the world.
FacebookTwitterRSSVideophotoNewsletterMobile