As Liberal Sen. Jim Munson said in an interview with The Canadian Press, Conservative senators have “killed” Bill S-204, which would have authorized a national strategy for treating a condition called chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency or CCSVI.

More to the point, the bill would have forced the initiation of formal trials of a controversial treatment for CCSVI called “liberation therapy,” in which constricted neck veins are widened using balloon angioplasty to improve blood flow from the brain. The treatment is based on a questionable theory championed by Dr. Paolo Zamboni of Italy that CCSVI may cause multiple sclerosis.

“Since Day 1, the Conservatives have played politics with MS patients,” said Liberal Sen. Jane Cordy, a Sydney native who sponsored the bill. “The Conservative senators on that committee threw the science away and have used politics, politics, politics.”

But haven’t opposition politicians — both on the federal and provincial levels — been using politics to advance the position that liberation therapy is beneficial and that clinical trials on the treatment should be conducted using MS sufferers here at home to help prove the theory?

Indeed, the Conservatives insist that the opposite of what Cordy was accusing them of is true: that they’re conceding to science on this one as opposed to political pressure.

That’s not to say Conservative senators always concede to the majority view of the scientific community. The Tory members in the house of “sober second thought” ignored an awful lot of science — arguably in favour of politics — when they recently recommended a massive multi-year seal cull in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

On the issue of liberation therapy, though, truly dispassionate science is largely skeptical at best. There is increasing evidence that MS is primarily an autoimmune disorder.

And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning back in May that injuries and deaths have been associated with liberation therapy. At least two Canadians died from complications stemming from the treatment — one is Costa Rica and one in the U.S. In Canada, the procedure is considered experimental and is not approved for MS patients.

Unlike the Senate, the Conservative government did bow to earlier political pressure and agreed to a small-scale clinical trial, though there’s been little movement on that front.

Scientists seem to agree that the best way to determine the efficacy of liberation therapy is via a comprehensive double-blind clinical trial. A research team in Albany, N.Y. is conducting just such a study over two years and involving 130 patients, some of whom are Canadian. The Saskatchewan government agreed to spend $2.2 million to have 86 Saskatchewan patients take part in the American trial.

Why would Canadian researchers submit more patients to a questionable, risky procedure for the type of study that’s already underway south of the border?

http://www.capebretonpost.com/Opinion/Editorial/2012-11-23/article-3126113/Science-versus-politics/1