Dear Ms. Matthews

Thank you for responding to my letter to yours re MS.

Ms must be a bigger problem than it appears on the surface – nearly everyone I have spoken to in government has or had a relative with MS. This makes me wonder even more why so little is being done about it.

I also wonder at your claim – and others in government make the exact same claim – to do all that you can “as quickly as we can to determine if it (Angioplasty) is effective and safe for treating MS. Specifically, I wonder why this was not your objective in all these years past when you were approving the drugs that are being doled out ad nausium to MS patients. Drugs such as Copaxone, Rebif, Avonex and Betaseron. I have been unable to find one solitary patient who claims anything good about them and many who claim negative effects. And then there is TYSABRI – apparently responsible for a number of deaths but still being pushed as a “safe” drug treatment. I, myself, was prescribed Gabapentin which left me with a good deal less balance and a good deal more MS misery. I do not take it anymore. In spite of the less than useful, often detrimental effects of these drugs, there was no hue and cry from any government agency about needing to look out for our safety with them. So why all of a sudden, now that we have found an often effective and a good deal less unsafe treatment, is the government messing in something they clearly do not understand or know anything about?

You claim Dr. Zamboni’s treatment is experimental. True enough. But it is helping a lot of people. The above named drugs cost the taxpayer, either personally or by way of his taxes a good deal of wasted money over the years they have been being prescribed. There has been no outcry about wasting taxpayers money when it was definitely being wasted, so why now? Now that it is apparent that the odds are more in favour of it being a better risk for the tax payer? It appears that drugs, both legal and illegal are running this country, not logic or usefulness.

You say angioplasty is an approved treatment in Ontario – just not for CCSVI. Isn’t that what we taxpayers pay you to do – approve useful treatments? This one is useful and a good deal more useful that the drugs you have previously approved. There is no logic to your argument! And there is less logic to forcing Canadians to leave the country for a little relief from this condition and refusing them post operative care when they return. It looks a lot more like spitefulness than good politics. And it appears that there are more personal agendas than public ones at play here. (See attachment)

I am well aware that my government is watching the developments. This however is not a spectator sport. It is a debilitating condition that affects a lot of Canadians and specifically, Ontarioans.

Asking neurologists to review these developments amounts to asking a floor sweeper to do the books or the Taliban to lead Canadians soldiers in Afghanistan. It is not at all swift! Dr. Alain Beaudet is a neurologist. That makes him one of those who have foisted all these useless and sometimes dangerous drugs off on us and one of those who, in all the years they have been at it, still knows nothing useful about MS. Sorry but their interests are not the interests of MS patients. They have made it abundantly clear that their interests lie in getting headlines, and pushing drugs. If it were otherwise, they would have shown some interest in this treatment. They didn’t. They cane out immediately and labeled it a hoax. That, Ms. Matthrews, is what is called a closed mind.

You and the Federal government have committed yourselves to speed up the development?? You call vague referrals to ‘years‘ of study speeding it up?? What we want are immediate trials with a 6 month limit for the first report, followed by yearly reports. There are a lot of over 50 (years old) people with MS. We have been misdiagnosed, treated like mental patients, used as guinea pigs and other less than decent treatments from both medical practitioners and politicians for a very long time. First of all, we do not have time for your 10 year studies. I am already turning 65 years old next week. Secondly, we are fed up with being treated like second class citizens in our own country.

I have come to expect closed minds from the Conservatives. I am disgusted and dismayed that it is, it seems, a condition that applies to all politicians. I expected more from you than politics as usual.

Sincerely

Karen Copeland
229, 2100 Russell Road
Ottawa, Ontario
K1G 3W7

Tel: 613-260-3448

The attachment mentioned is the list of doctors and their disclosures as seen on blog entitled:
Will angioplasty for MS Patients ever get a fair trial>