CCSVI Therapy Trials
This government does tend to make some surprising announcements coming out of decisions that hardly anyone anticipates. Failing to support a United Nations bid to place chrysotile asbestos on a warning listing for causing cancer, targeting importers, thus supporting an unsupportable industry in Quebec brought Canada a black eye which it has not yet acknowledged.
But the more recent announcement that Canada is now prepared to proceed with funding of tests for a MS treatment whose efficacy is in dispute is a decision of an entirely different kind. Some similarities exist; each is a process which is under dispute; one offers hope and life to a significant portion of Canadian society, the other offers early death to unsuspecting users of a traditional element to people in the construction trades outside Canada.
And there are other perplexing links: chrysotile asbestos use is condemned by science, by the medical community, by human rights activists and by most Western countries which have banned its use, recognizing it as a carcinogen. Whereas the scientific community has come out questioning the usefulness of Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous Insufficiency.
Oddly, the Harper government has supported the former, despite mass condemnation, and supported also the latter, despite professional doubts.
Canada offers death on the one hand, in support of a dying industry employing a scant handful of mine workers who themselves are exposed to asbestosis, in yet another tiresome effort to do Quebec's bidding, even while most Quebecers would support mining cessation. And it offers hope to the myriads of Multiple Sclerosis sufferers who believe that Italian Dr. Zamboni's treatment will give them a new lease on life, even if their own professional health group will not recognize it.
Clinical studies undertaken by medical researchers appear to indicate that Dr. Paolo Zamboni's 'cure' is smoke and mirrors. Yet anecdotal evidence by grateful MS sufferers tells another story altogether, of relief from pain and the vicious strictures of the disease, and a new ability to live life in a fuller, more satisfying way.
Even with some people suffering gradual regression, determining to undergo the treatment again. Even with the unfortunate deaths of two people who had suffered life-threatening consequences as a result of the procedure.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq spoke for the government, however, in announcing she is prepared to proceed with funding for tests on an experimental scale. Despite that a group of scientists had reviewed existing evidence and concluded that enough proof of success to warrant clinical trials was not present. On the basis of which Health Canada determined it would await the results of further clinical trials funded by the MS Societies in Canada and the United States.
But that decision has been overturned, citing the review of preliminary results of the trials when a scientific working group recommended government initiate small scale trials. Dr. Alain Beaudet, president of the Canadian institutes of Health Research claimed evidence brought forward for the panel's consideration suggest "a trend to an association between the greater prevalence of CCSVI in patients with MS than in healthy controls."
Yet previous reports have all questioned that theory and suggested the opposite to be true. That blocked veins were not prevalent in a a considerable proportion of MS sufferers and that further, blocked veins were present in a significant number of non-MS sufferers. Isn't that a conundrum? And what recommends the use of the procedure in the light of that information?
On the other hand, those who point to the controversial disagreements as reason not to proceed with trials, are looking at the situation with a clinical attitude, common to non-sufferers of MS, devoid of the emotion that imbues people who must live with the life-altering-and-ending effects of MS who find sudden relief when they travel abroad for treatment.
Given those immediate, direct and emotional responses, perhaps the only humane response should be what the government has decided to proceed with: small-scale trials to determine whether the liberation procedure offers enough relief to sufferers that it cannot be entirely dismissed.
But the more recent announcement that Canada is now prepared to proceed with funding of tests for a MS treatment whose efficacy is in dispute is a decision of an entirely different kind. Some similarities exist; each is a process which is under dispute; one offers hope and life to a significant portion of Canadian society, the other offers early death to unsuspecting users of a traditional element to people in the construction trades outside Canada.
And there are other perplexing links: chrysotile asbestos use is condemned by science, by the medical community, by human rights activists and by most Western countries which have banned its use, recognizing it as a carcinogen. Whereas the scientific community has come out questioning the usefulness of Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous Insufficiency.
Oddly, the Harper government has supported the former, despite mass condemnation, and supported also the latter, despite professional doubts.
Canada offers death on the one hand, in support of a dying industry employing a scant handful of mine workers who themselves are exposed to asbestosis, in yet another tiresome effort to do Quebec's bidding, even while most Quebecers would support mining cessation. And it offers hope to the myriads of Multiple Sclerosis sufferers who believe that Italian Dr. Zamboni's treatment will give them a new lease on life, even if their own professional health group will not recognize it.
Clinical studies undertaken by medical researchers appear to indicate that Dr. Paolo Zamboni's 'cure' is smoke and mirrors. Yet anecdotal evidence by grateful MS sufferers tells another story altogether, of relief from pain and the vicious strictures of the disease, and a new ability to live life in a fuller, more satisfying way.
Even with some people suffering gradual regression, determining to undergo the treatment again. Even with the unfortunate deaths of two people who had suffered life-threatening consequences as a result of the procedure.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq spoke for the government, however, in announcing she is prepared to proceed with funding for tests on an experimental scale. Despite that a group of scientists had reviewed existing evidence and concluded that enough proof of success to warrant clinical trials was not present. On the basis of which Health Canada determined it would await the results of further clinical trials funded by the MS Societies in Canada and the United States.
But that decision has been overturned, citing the review of preliminary results of the trials when a scientific working group recommended government initiate small scale trials. Dr. Alain Beaudet, president of the Canadian institutes of Health Research claimed evidence brought forward for the panel's consideration suggest "a trend to an association between the greater prevalence of CCSVI in patients with MS than in healthy controls."
Yet previous reports have all questioned that theory and suggested the opposite to be true. That blocked veins were not prevalent in a a considerable proportion of MS sufferers and that further, blocked veins were present in a significant number of non-MS sufferers. Isn't that a conundrum? And what recommends the use of the procedure in the light of that information?
On the other hand, those who point to the controversial disagreements as reason not to proceed with trials, are looking at the situation with a clinical attitude, common to non-sufferers of MS, devoid of the emotion that imbues people who must live with the life-altering-and-ending effects of MS who find sudden relief when they travel abroad for treatment.
Given those immediate, direct and emotional responses, perhaps the only humane response should be what the government has decided to proceed with: small-scale trials to determine whether the liberation procedure offers enough relief to sufferers that it cannot be entirely dismissed.
Labels: Government of Canada, Health, Human Rights
posted by Pieface | 3:04 PM
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