Is it an example of governments coming to their senses or a triumph of information over knowledge?
Just as with the controversy swirling around the so-called liberation treatment for multiple sclerosis developed by Italian Dr. Paulo Zamboni, it’s too soon to tell.
But the dam is broken and the money is beginning to flow to study the effects of placing a stent in a vein below a person’s brain, to free up blood flow so that iron deposits held back in the brain can be flushed out, releasing the patient from the symptoms of MS, if not the disease. Now, we will just need to watch what happens.
It took very little time after the announcement of the procedure by Zamboni for Canadians to demand access to it. Canada, after all, has a high population of people with MS — about 75,000 people.
But as recently as two weeks ago, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research were trying to get people understand that people coming forward with claims of a “cure” is not science, any more than the testimony of people who found cancer relief in apricot pits. They warned that there was not enough evidence to suggest the theory of iron buildup in the brain was sound, or that the procedure itself was safe.
It bears repeating that of the four categories of MS sufferers Zamboni studied, the treatment only worked for one group — and not even all of them.
But pressure to have access to the procedure mounted and Canadians began spending inordinate funds to go to Poland or India for any hope of release from what MS does to a person.
In July, Saskatchewan became the first province to announce it would fund clinical trials of the liberation treatment.
Manitoba said it would participate in a national study, if the other provinces agreed to join one (which hasn’t happened). Newfoundland and Labrador — after entreaties by a lawyer with government access, and by Senator Mike Duffy, both claiming success with the treatment for their own MS — said this week they would conduct a study on the outcomes of MS patients from their province who went abroad for the treatment.
In Alberta, Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky took the politician’s exit and said he would talk to health officials here to see if they can “speed up” the research. But it’s pretty well impossible to “speed up” a multi-year outcomes study without destroying it.
Currently, there are no less than seven research projects being funded by the MS societies of Canada and the U.S., whose results cannot be judged for at least two more years. To all those people in Central Alberta who participated in this summer’s Rona MS Bike Tour, a good portion of the money you raised will probably be spent on these studies.
Despite all the pressure being brought to bear, all we can do is watch and wait. MS patients can sign up to become study subjects, if that’s still possible, but governments should not be spending tens of millions to give people access to the treatment — just to see what happens.
That’s not science. Trying to rush into the liberation treatment will open up an ethical nightmare — and probably a legal one as well. Our medical history is loaded with treatments and procedures that backfired. Thalidomide, anyone? How about Vioxx?
Whether Dr. Paulo Zamboni will pick up a Nobel Prize or become a footnote in the history of specious medical treatments, it is just too soon to tell.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.