Dear Dr. Andrews:

I went to the Vancouver B.C. CCSVI Information Session held on Tuesday, November 16th, and as I walked in
the door, the organizer said to me,

"Nice-to-meet-you-we-had-a-cancellation-will-you-be-on-our-panel?" and

five minutes later I had a microphone in my hand addressing the crowd of

300+. I am including a link to the video. You don't need to watch what I

had to say, but you might find of interest that when the presentation

was over, and the floor was opened for questions, the first question was

addressed to me and was about you.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10905708

(Youtube has some clips in which the audio was "sweetened." Search "CCSVI
Information Session" on youtube, or go to my Facebook page.)

Afterwards, people lined up to ask me questions, and the most frequent one I
received was, "Why does Dr. Andrews require a referral from a

neurologist?" I could not answer, but I told them I would ask you. There

are many Canadians who watch my Facebook page, and my posts get

reposted on a lot of ccsvi sites. They really would like to know what is

happening in Seattle, and why a referral from a GP is not acceptable.

In related developments, there is a skilled ultrasound technician in
Tucson, Arizona who specializes in ccsvi detection and has a portable

unit. Plans are in the making to bring him to Seattle so that Canadians

can access screening.

Thought you should know.

Peace,

Kathleen Lynch

Dr. Andrews' response:

Date: Nov 29, 2010 7:51 AM

You have my permission to publish [my response] . . . as follows:

We are not requiring a referral from a neurologist. We are, however,
requiring that someone with expertise in neurology be involved in each

patient's care and agree to provide longitudinal follow-up so we know

how the patient is doing and how he or she is responding to treatment.

Most importantly, we want to be sure that the patient's existing

provider will not abandon his or her care upon learning that the patient

has had CCSVI treatment. To that end, we are asking patients to provide

us with contact information for their neurologists so that we can

establish a correspondence.

We do not feel that it is in the best interest of patients to have them self-refer for invasive
procedures without appropriate prior workup, a discussion of treatment

options, and a plan for long-term follow-up. We are not the best people

to provide these services, since we have neither formal training in nor

personal experience with MS and because we are not readily accessible

to people living outside of Seattle.

I hope you can impress those who contact you that we are already working outside of the
normal clinical envelope by offering CCSVI diagnosis and treatment

before it has been definitively proven to have value. We are doing so

on somewhat of a compassionate care basis. We have been asked not to

perform any more CCSVI procedures at the hospital and are now limited to

doing cases at our independent outpatient facility. Patients who are

antagonistic on the phone, or who refuse to provide us with the contact

information that we feel is necessary for safe care, are not helping the

cause. In fact, we are now feeling some pressure to abandon the

program altogether.

R. Torrance Andrews, MD, FSIR

Vascular & Interventional Radiology

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=480873858856&ref=notif&notif_t=note_tag