As past president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, we have known for a long time that the Liberation treatment for Multiple Sclerosis patients does not work. It never had credibility to begin with. It was over seven years ago that Dr. Paulo Zamboni of Ferrara, Italy excitedly announced a treatment he had developed to increase the drainage of blood from the brain of MS patients. A Canadian replication of the treatment with a double-blind study has shown conclusively that the procedure makes no difference.
But consider the cost. Thousands of Canadian MS patients spend anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 at special ‘clinics’ in other countries. That was in addition to their travel and hotel costs. Canadian doctors were very reluctant to provide any post-operative care for a procedure that was not even considered safe in Canada. In some cases the treatment was a scam. And there were deaths from the treatment in clinics outside Canada.
It was not the W5 program on CTV that caused most of the stir for the Zamboni treatment. It was the CTV news programs that promoted the program for the network. They sensationalized the supposed cure. That was when the promotion crossed the line.
And then there were the politicians who jumped on the bandwagon. One of the first was the then M.P. for Barrie, Ontario who is now leader of the Ontario Conservative Party. Mr. Brown has never met a charitable cause that he cannot jump aboard to publicize himself.
But to be fair, politicians from other parties wanted aboard the publicity train. Two Liberal M.P.s who are also medical doctors thought the procedure should be fast-tracked and they spoke out on behalf of the procedure without really understanding what they were promoting.
The problem had to be resolved by the Canadian MS Society with the aid of the medical research community across Canada. The first problem, we assume, must have been finding a safe and fair way to test the theory while providing a placebo test that could verify the results. And then you have to find a researcher who can find the time to handle a lengthy double-blind study with sufficient patients to produce credible results.
Now, eight years after the fact, we conclusively know that the Liberation treatment treats nothing. It does not work.
But, joy oh joy, the people who promote these off-shore ‘clinics’ called CCSVI Ontario were reported to have the nerve to tell a newspaper reporter that this extremely costly Canadian study was “sham science.”
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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