Dr. Bill Code returned to Saskatchewan with a message for his home province, where the highest rate of multiple sclerosis in the world is found.

“It’s time we started doing clinical trials here. It’s time we starting doing angioplasty of the veins in the neck here,” said Code, emphasizing the word “here,” at a public meeting Thursday in Saskatoon.

About 100 people showed their agreement with a round of loud applause. They came leaning on their canes, pushing their walkers and riding in their wheelchairs.

“I’m a rebel with a cause,” said Code in an interview before he spoke at a free public lecture that was locally organized.

Born and raised in rural Saskatchewan, Code graduated from the University of Saskatchewan college of medicine in 1978. He practised as a family doctor for four years in Hudson Bay. Code then took specialty training to be an anesthetist and did brain research in Calgary.

“I was involved in brain research in two years of bench research. I’ve had more neuro-research than almost all neurologists. I’ve had the same training or slightly more than most neurologists,” he said.

“Neurologists are brilliant diagnosticians. That’s their strength and, unfortunately, I think they’ve been wooed into the easy research funding of pharmaceutical research.”

That explains the reluctance and even outright dismissive approach Canadian neurologists have taken toward the “liberation” procedure for multiple sclerosis, he says.

Code spoke from personal experience. In 1996, at the age of 42, he was diagnosed with MS. His sister has also been diagnosed with the disease. When Code first learned of the controversial “liberation” procedure developed by Italian Dr. Paolo Zamboni, he, too, was skeptical. But he did his own research and decided to undergo the procedure himself.

In November, he travelled to a clinic in California, paid $8,000 and had the veins in his neck expanded with angioplasty to increase the flow of blood from the brain.

“This is all about optimal circulation. If the veins aren’t open you get back pressure,” he told the group.

He cautioned the audience the treatment for chronic cerebral spinal venous insufficiency, or lack of drainage of blood from the brain and spinal cord, is a treatment, not a cure.

During the question and answer period, some of those in the audience wondered about recurring symptoms after they had received the treatment. Code reminded them the procedure has vastly improved in the short couple of years since Zamboni first tried it. Some doctors are using larger balloons. Some will also open all three veins in the neck, rather than focusing on one or two.

Code encouraged people to look at clinics in the United States rather than Europe or Latin American countries.

“We can be fussy,” he said. “We’ve got people close to home who are really good at this now.”

But no one in Canada performs the procedure. It hasn’t been approved by the government.

“I don’t know how long we can wait here. Some people feel they have no time to wait. They can’t dress themselves. Some can’t even swallow and that’s reversed almost immediately,” he said, adding the Canadian health-care system would save money and people would have an improved quality of life.

“This is a young person’s disease. It’s almost always young women. It takes people away from their careers and their families.

“It’s the most debilitating loss-of-work neurologic aliment in Canada.”

lhaight@thestarphoenix.com