Evidence of meeting #4 for Subcommittee on Neurological Disease in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was patients.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Medical Doctor, As an Individual
I've heard a lot of wait-and-see. If everybody takes the wait-and-see venue, we'll never go anywhere. Somehow we have to get, hopefully, this committee to say to the government that this is a real disease and that we really need to treat it, because people are hurting.
Physicians know how to treat it. Patients want to be treated. We're being blocked from treating it, and I have no idea why.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Patrick Brown
You're in a unique position, Dr. McDonald, in the sense that you've actually treated patients with this procedure. And I understand that you've actually done it at your own expense. I understand you've treated six patients. Have there been any complications? And what have you learned from the treatment that you have engaged in so far?
12:10 p.m.
Medical Doctor, As an Individual
There have been no complications to treatment.
I'll give you a really nice example. A 23-year-old kid can't feel his left arm or left leg. He gets an angioplasty done and he gets feeling back in his left leg and his left arm. He's living in a house with an elevator because he can't go up and down the stairs. A week later he tells his mom and dad he's moving out of the house and into the apartment with his girlfriend because he doesn't have MS any more.
The procedure works. We have to allow patients to have the procedure.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Patrick Brown
I have one minute left on my time. I know, Dr. Murray, you wanted to say something as well.
12:10 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I know that the neurological community is purveyed as being skeptical. Not that they object to the fact that this is an important issue to be addressed, but we recognize that an anecdote is not strong evidence in medicine any longer. There are accepted ways to analyze benefit in any treatment.
One of the reasons neurologists have a concern--and they have a concern--is what Dr. Zamboni published, not what the media has been saying or the stories that we have heard. Dr. Zamboni published results in 65 cases. There were relapsing-remitting patients, secondary progressive patients, and primary progressive patients. His results, after 18 months... He indicated in his paper that the relapsing-remitting patients, if the vein stayed open, got some benefit. But those patients whose veins collapsed did not get a benefit. The secondary progressive patients did not get a benefit; the primary progressive patients did not get a benefit.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Patrick Brown
Unfortunately, Dr. Murray, we are out of time. I have to cut my round off; otherwise, I'll be longer than anyone else. I don't want to do that.
Thank you, everyone, for coming today. This has been very informative. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with us.
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
Can we just ask that if they have anything to add, they should send it in?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Patrick Brown
That's a very good point, Ms. Hughes.
If you have any research that you could pass on to the committee as we develop this national strategy on the brain, our study of neurological disorders, it would be much appreciated. And thank you again for your time.
The meeting is adjourned.