liberation therapy

Results from a key Canadian study into venoplasty for MS appear to have been prematurely released, leaving questions

Last week’s shut-down of the Albany, NY clinical trial investigating CCSVI treatment due to lack of patient enrollment is a big set-back on a number of fronts. It’s bad news for the Saskatchewan government, which allocated $2.2 million and recruited patients to travel to the U.S.—and a  blow for those who’d taken part in the trial or were lined up to go. But, like all failures, it’s instructive.

Patients are left with costs as discredited MS therapy circles the drain, writes Colby Cosh

The third in a series on the credibility of health information on the Web

Zamboni’s research almost certainly has to have been junk

Not just ivory towers, universities are doing work that will give important answers to thousands

I see that Colleague Kingston is unsure why the federal Minister of Health is frustrated at media coverage of her ministry’s approach to the vein-centered Zamboni hypothesis about multiple sclerosis. One possible reason, I think, is that statements like those of Liberal health critic Kirsty Duncan are being repeated rather uncritically. Duncan told Kingston “They say we need evidence-based medicine but they are doing nothing to gather evidence.” Nothing? I wonder how else, but as “evidence-gathering”, one could possibly characterize the seven MS Society-funded preliminary studies Aglukkaq mentioned in her burst of finger-wagging at the media. These studies are designed to establish precisely what needs to be confirmed before the dream of a pan-Canadian trial of vein therapy for MS can appropriately be fulfilled: namely, whether there is any such thing at all as “chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency”, and whether it is really correlated with MS.

COSH: “There’s no unitary global Science Court where hypotheses can be hauled in for exoneration or hanging”

Colby Cosh on why Dr. Paolo Zamboni should be the next reality TV star

COSH on the troubles with Paolo Zamboni’s “liberation therapy”