NDP Urged to start experimental MS treatments
Posted Jul 28, 2010 04:16:49 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Earlier in the week, Saskatchewan’s government announced it would start paying for clinical trials of an experimental Multiple Sclerosis treatment developed by an Italian physician.
Dr. Paolo Zamboni believes MS is caused by blocked arteries in the neck or spinal cord and those can be treated by angioplasty. That is the same procedure currently used to clear blocked arteries in heart patients.
Canadian MS patients who want the treatment have been forced to travel overseas to clinics in Poland, Bulgaria or India.
That’s what the Annapolis Valley’s Chris Alkenbrack did. He spent $15,000 to fly to Poland and receive the treatment this past spring. It was expensive, but he says it works.
“First of all, I’m able to drive again,” says Alkenbrack. “The MS-related fatigue is gone and the brain slog – the inability to concentrate – is almost gone.” The 43-year old adds it was easy and it worked. “I was awake for the entire procedure that took a half hour and set back my disease course by five to six years.”
Alkenbrack says this is a very simple and cost effective procedure. He says “Dr. Sandy MacDonald in Ontario did a report to a parliamentary sub-committee on nuerological disease that said the procedure would cost about $1,500 in Canada.”
Liberal Health Critic Diana Whalen says there are currently 3,200 Nova Scotians with Multiple Sclerosis. “That is the highest ratio on a per capita basis in Canada,” she says. And she’s calling on the NDP government to follow Saskatchewan’s lead and start funding clinical trials here.
“Nova Scotia has the research capacity, a teaching hospital and lots of specialists and world class researchers in MS,” says Whalen. She adds “We are ideally placed to do this research here and help Nova Scotians.”
She says people in the province with MS are anxious to have the treatment offered here and are hopeful that it makes a difference in their lives. “I think we owe it to them to start the research right here,” adds Whalen.
