The Chronic Cerebral Spinal Venous
Insufficiency (CCSVI) Society of Alberta
140 St Albert Road, Unit 570
PO Box 48003
St. Albert, AB T8N 3S0
October 13, 2011
The Honourable Alison Redford, QC, MLA
Premier of Alberta
307 Legislature Building
10800 - 97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6
Dear Premier:
I wish to congratulate you on becoming the 14th premier of Alberta and like many other Albertans, look forward to your leadership in making Alberta a better place for us all.
I represent the Chronic Cerebral Spinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI) Society of Alberta. We are an all volunteer grass roots advocacy organization with approximately 2000 members. Our mission is to make CCSVI testing and treatment available in Alberta -NOW.
“Neither venous stents, nor venous angioplasty, are approved in Canada so people with MS are going out of the country and paying to have these interventions done." The preceding statement is found in the Alberta government TAMSI survey (first paragraph – TAMSI Background) https://tamsi.ca/survey/ . The problem is, the statement is untrue. Venous angioplasty and stenting has been performed in Canada routinely for at least 15 years. In fact these procedures are taught by the University of Alberta, Faculty of Medicine.
The above error was pointed out to the Alberta Health Minister, during CCSVI Alberta's meeting with him on August 3. He seemed to take it very seriously as we pointed out to him that this inaccuracy draws the credibility of the entire survey into question. This is particularly true because the subjects of the survey, MS patients who have undergone CCSVI treatment, are well aware of the facts surrounding venous angioplasty and stenting due to their inquiries prior to treatment. The statement would be accurate if it were amended to say - venous angioplasty and stenting is not approved for people with MS in Canada.
Attached is a document that further highlights inaccuracies in Alberta Government websites and shows venous angioplasty and stenting procedures taught by the University of Alberta
The link below will lead you to one of the Interventional Radiology (Surgical Treatment of Blood Vessels) Journals. On page 16 of the journal, you will find an article By Dr. Dake, MD. He was one of the early pioneers of CCSVI treatment. The excerpt below reinforces the opinion of our members, namely: this controversy is simply an ego driven turf war and power struggle between personal, medical and corporate interests. http://www.cirse.org/files/File/cirse2011_congressNews_sun_web.pdf
· "Clearly, a genuine collaboration that respectfully encourages involvement of all interested parties could lead to the most objective, efficient and conclusive scientific investigations of CCSVI, but make no mistake; this will require the successful tackling of many tough challenges. Daunting impediments include: vested interests, silos with different cultures, hidden agendas, and diverse levels of understanding, strong egos, messenger killers, entrenched dogmatists, sanctimonious pontificators, cynical nihilists, and a whole range of biases." Dr. Micheal Dake, MD (Stanford University)
On behalf of CCSVI Alberta, I am requesting a meeting with the Premier and the Health Minister at their earliest convenience. Please advise a suitable date, time and location. I can be reached at 780-
Yours Sincerely,
Warren J. Stefanuk
President
CCSVI Alberta - Edmonton