Right Wing Attack on Canada’s Science Minister

Ashton Embry·Tuesday, November 17, 2015

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Last week, the right wing media attacked Canada’s new Science Minister, Dr.Kirsty Duncan, and to me this is the best endorsement Dr. Duncan could have gotten for being a great choice for this important and long neglected post. It is no secret that the right wing, from former PM Harper to various columnists and bloggers, are not fans of science and were happiest when a former Science Minister was a creationist. I have no doubt that the right wing also has little respect for Prime Minister Trudeau, Defense Minister Sajjanand Environment and Climate Change Minister McKenna. In fact ,I suspect they strongly dislike the entire Liberal cabinet. The bottom line is that Dr. Duncan is in very good company in terms of objects of dislike by the right wing and to me she has all the right qualifications for the post she holds.
It is worth noting that her past, strong support for objective science to be done on the relationship between impaired venous blood flow from the brain and multiple sclerosis was the right thing to do.Proper science on this topic was needed given the high rate of MS in Canada, the devastation the disease can cause, and the lack of any effective treatments. The initial, major resistance of the MS researchers to such research was impressive and underscored the lack of integrity and objectivity pervasive in the drug company-funded, MS research community.
I would note that the federal government has always strongly influenced science mainly through various science-oriented departments (e.g. Natural Resources Canada, Health Canada) but also through federal funding for various initiatives done at universities. This is how it should be given the highly restricted, tunnel vision of most academic researchers and the fact that academic researchers mainly do unimaginative, plateau research in order to receive funding. Academia dislikes innovative research which may prove colleagues wrong. If there was ever a case to be made for the need for the federal government pushing for some much needed science, the MS/impaired venous blood flow subject was it. It is to Dr. Duncan’s credit that she led the charge.
It is noteworthy that the right wing gang could only get a couple of retired neurologists to comment on Dr. Duncan. Jock Murray had a long career as a clinician and his MS research was mainly connected to drug company-funded trials. Notably, most of the science he did falls into the grey area of highly subjective research due to the large sums of money he personally received from drug companies. Most scientists do not have such overt conflicts of interest which cast very dark shadows over their research results. Not surprisingly Jock’s huge and lavish retirement party, which included guests being flown in,was funded primarily by Teva, a major MS drug company. The bottom line for Jock is that he is the last person who should be commenting on good science (objective) versus bad science (subjective).
The other, long retired neurologist dusted off to bad mouth Dr. Duncan was Michael Rasminsky from McGill. He conducted research mainly in the 70s and 80s and has only five research papers on MS to his credit according to Pubmed. Michael missed the MS drug money, gravy train of the last 20 years and he consequently has no conflicts of interest that I know of. However, his knowledge of MS and Impaired venous blood flow is basically zero given he has not done any research in this field and has only read a few negative studies done, not surprisingly, by researchers with financial ties to MS drug companies. I hope Michael will continue to ride into the sunset and not embarrass himself any further by making silly pronouncements on subjects he knows little about and people he has never met.
Right now the current, objective scientific literature robustly supports a strong association between impaired venous blood flow and MS. The key remaining question that needs to be answered by OBJECTIVE researchers (i.e. no personal funding from drug companies, past or present) is the value of the restoration of proper venous blood flow from the brain for alleviating symptoms of MS. The only, blinded trial done so far was very small (19 subjects) and was done by compromised researchers. Notably the researchers did not restore proper blood flow in any of their subjects, treated or sham, thus making their research results worthless in regards to the value of restoring proper blood flow for MS. Not surprisingly, the meaningless results of this effort are trumpeted by MS researchers tied to drug companies as showing restoration of proper blood flow is not of value. Such is the hopeless state of MS research/researchers these days.
MS is a huge problem for Canada. It is imperative that Dr. Duncan does what she can to help restore MS research from its current, compromised and untrustworthy state to that of objective, solid science done by researchers with integrity and no conflicts of interest.

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