Alain Beaudet, CIHR President: “Karen, I don’t want to be picky and I am deeply appreciative of your working on this throughout the WE, but I find the press release a little too focused on the term CCSVI when in fact we don’t even know whether such an entity exists. The minister’s quote, in particular gives too much credence to the syndrome in my opinion”
Karen Spierkel: I completly understand Alain. I will make suggested changes and send to MOH.
CIHR email - August 29 2010
International Union of Phlebology - Published December 2009:
A Consensus Conference on Venous Malformations, headed by Prof. Byung B Lee from Georgetown and experts from 47 countries, studied the evidence and unanimously voted in favour of officially including the stenosing lesions found in CCSVI in the new Consensus Document and Guidelines. CCSVI lesions are classified as truncular venous malformations, which means that vascular doctors have now classified CCSVI, as congenital and preceding MS lesions.
CCSVI does "exist" and the folks down at the CIHR should have have been more aware of the published Consensus Document.
News of this Consensus Document had exploded on Facebook by the end of 2009.