MS patients demand access to experimental treatment in Canada
Posted May 5, 2010 03:27:33 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A group of Nova Scotians with Multiple Sclerosis demonstrated outside of Province House to demand access to a controversial treatment not available in Canada.
The treatment is being touted as some as a potential cure for MS.
It’s called the Liberation Treatment. It clears vein blockages in the neck that appear to be connected to the disease and has shown promising results.
Christopher Alkenbrack has had MS for 18 years and he says he’s forced to go to Poland to get the treatment.
“Our goal today is to hopefully open doors so that people in Nova Scotia who don’t necessarily have the funding to go overseas and have this treatment done or the diagnostic tests done — to have it done in Nova Scotia,” says Alkenbrack.
The protest was one of several simultaneous protests across Canada.
Nova Scotia’s Health Minister Maureen MacDonald met with some of the protesters. She says until the treatment gets past the experimental stage, the government won’t approve the technique.
