Kirsty Duncan

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, last night the House came together to support MS patients from across the country, fighting for diagnosis and treatment of CCSVI, or narrowed veins.

This morning, the Subcommittee on Neurological Disease heard compelling testimony from Dr. Zamboni, who first described the treatment.

Would the minister commit today to convene her provincial and territorial counterparts immediately to ensure that no Canadian be deprived of the imaging necessary for a diagnosis of CCSVI and treatment, if required?

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, just some points of clarification again. We do venoplasty of jugular veins when a dialysis catheter causes a stenosis, so we have done this prior to this work.

With respect to the meeting that the government is planning, I would request that it needs to bring in experts on CCSVI. If it brings in neurologists with no experience or knowledge on venous disease, we will have no benefit. The money needs to be spent by those with a fundamental knowledge of CCSVI.

Right now, there are less than ten Zamboni-trained technicians in Canada. I would just like to stress that Canada has a chance to be a true leader in this country if we take action now, if we get diagnosis and treatment for people living with this disease and we give this $10 million that the MS Society has asked for.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for saying that we need to get there as quickly as possible. One hundred patients have had the treatment in Bulgaria and they have all had improvement in their symptoms. Their disability score has improved by 1.5 points on average.

We need a compassionate route to treatment for patients who have no other options. It is really important to point out that this is not a new procedure for veins. Venoplasty is done for venous stenosis in dialysis patients all the time and it has been done for several years. If a patient had a venous problem in the liver or the leg it would be diagnosed and treated. We know how to do this.

We do have to move this along as quickly as possible--

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, the money for CIHR must be allocated to research that includes a treatment arm. Again, the MS Society has asked for $10 million. It would be terrific to hear that the $10 million is coming, but again, it must include a treatment arm.

The MS societies in Canada and the U.S. did not give any money to studies with a treatment arm of the $2.4 million announced last week. How will we know if it is effective if we do not have a treatment arm? We are encouraged that there will be this conference. I would like to know if Dr. Zamboni has been invited from Italy.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, there were some thoughts I heard earlier that need to be addressed.

First, this is a real condition. CCSVI refers to narrowed veins. It is recognized by 47 countries. We know how to diagnose and treat it. We know that between 80% and 97% of MS patients have this condition. We know that 1,000 people have been diagnosed and treated around the world. I am so encouraged tonight to hear that there seems to be consensus on all sides of the House that we need to move forward.

I want to point out that right now there is no research with a treatment arm being undertaken in Canada.

The question I have for my hon. colleague is this. Canadians today are having CCSVI treated in Bulgaria. Why do they have to travel to Europe when the facilities for treatment are available in Canada?

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, I thank the hon. member for his moving speech and for having the courage to say that the federal government has a role. I extend my best wishes to his sister and family.

I want Canadians living with this disease to have their voice in Parliament tonight. Another letter states in part:

I was diagnosed with MS exactly 14 years ago, and am at the point where I pretty much require round-the-clock care. No medications help me, but I take several for symptom relief. My medical care and Home Care needs are a burden on tax payers, and at the young age...I think about suicide often because living like this is hell. A simple vascular procedure that is done regularly for people with other medical conditions is being denied to me.... This fact makes me cry every day, especially when I hear from people who have received the treatment so far...how well they are doing, and improving daily.

What will the member commit to doing to ask his government to help move this procedure, the diagnosis and treatment of CCSVI along? A few years ago a drug that has now been removed was fast-tracked. What will he commit to do to help move this along and also to get the $10 million requested for research? The diagnosis and treatment have to occur together with the research.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, I would like to thank my colleague for sharing something so deeply personal with us.

I think he will appreciate one email I received. It states:

I'm a child of an MS victim and I am writing this to you, to ask you if you have enough compassion to legalize a saving treatment.

My dad has had MS for about 13 years and since his diagnosis, nothing has been the same. He has not been able to do all the things he has wanted to do with us and when he has tried to accomplish EVERYTHING, he lies in his bed, in extreme pain. The worst part of it all is that I have to watch, knowing there is nothing I can do. But from the results on CCSVI treatment, I think maybe I can. Maybe if I write this letter on behalf of me and my younger brother and sister, we'll at least know that we could have contributed to a difference.

I want the member to know that there are people who have primary and secondary MS who are getting symptom relief from devastating MS. There are no medications for primary or secondary MS. Even though drugs exist for relapsing remitting, the efficacy is about one-third, or 33%. Should we not be undertaking the research now, which is the responsibility of the federal government, by giving people diagnosis and treatment and then following with the research?

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, it is important to understand that the federal government must take federal leadership. The federal government is responsible for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is neither efficient nor fair nor consistent with charter values for the Government of Canada to tolerate a limbo in which MS sufferers are simply told to wait the years it will take for those studies and in the meantime to put up with their discriminatory disqualification from a straightforward treatment of a diagnosable vascular condition.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Chair, Dr. Sandy McDonald, a cardiovascular surgeon in Barrie, Ontario, has seen the benefits of CCSVI treatment first-hand. He has performed six balloon angioplasties, pro bono, on MS patients this year. One of his patients was able to give up his walker. A teenage boy could walk up and down stairs for the first time in years.

The member speaks very sincerely and makes the argument for CCSVI. The member knows that Dr. McDonald came here asking for federal leadership. How can the government abdicate federal responsibility?

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Chair, it is unconscionable to be fighting over jurisdiction. I will repeat that the federal government has a role to play and that it needs to take leadership.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on whether it is fair that the liberation treatment, a simple surgery that sends a tiny balloon to a clogged jugular vein, is unavailable in Canada where it is considered experimental by health officials. Provincial health care plans will not fund it. Doctors will not perform it. This means patients are left in limbo. As a result they are forced to go to private clinics in Poland, Kuwait and India, paying upwards of $10,000. Is that fair?