Good afternoon.
Thank you to the chair and members of the committee for the invitation to speak today on the topic of women's health.
I am a trained neuroscientist and have the distinct honour of serving as the president and CEO of MS Canada. I am here today to share the importance of prioritizing and investing in women's health research specifically for the community I represent, those impacted by multiple sclerosis.
As you probably know, Canada has one of the highest rates in the world, and MS is a disease that differentially affects Canadian women. Women are, as you heard from Dr. Marrie, up to three times more likely to be diagnosed with MS than men. Every day in this country, 12 Canadians are diagnosed with this disease. On average, nine of them will be women. That means that every two hours in this country someone has to hear, "You have MS".
MS Canada is committed to changing the face of MS today and tomorrow. We're making incredible progress towards our impact goals of advancing treatment and care, enhancing well-being, understanding and halting disease progression and ultimately preventing MS.
We have cultivated a network of MS researchers that has become a leading contributor to discovery in the field of MS. The Canadian MS research community is made up of remarkable clinicians and researchers who are contributing to accelerating our research progress in MS, including Dr. Ruth Ann Marrie, who you've already heard from today.
As you heard from Dr. Marrie, there is a pressing need for research focused on women's health issues in MS to address health disparities, knowledge gaps and decisions for MS disease management around family planning, pregnancy and menopause.
I would like to speak for a moment about the emerging area of research that is gaining momentum in the area of prevention. Breakthrough research has shown infection with Epstein-Barr virus as an early trigger required for MS development. This discovery has given us an unprecedented opportunity in preventing MS.
For Julia, a mom living with MS, this research could directly impact her, as she said, "As a parent living with MS, the possibility of my kids developing MS weighs heavily in the back of my mind." It was a question that she and her husband Matt had for my doctors when they decided to try to start a family. "Could our children develop MS? Is it hereditary?"
These recent research advances are changing the way we think about MS. Where MS prevention was once a distant aspiration, today we see prevention as an attainable goal. To reach that goal for moms like Julia, we need to maintain the momentum of these recent discoveries and accelerate research.
At MS Canada, we know the power of collaboration. With the experience and expertise within the MS research community here in Canada and around the globe, working together will lead to transformative progress. Together we will be able to turn our vision of a world free of MS into reality.
With your work here at the committee and as parliamentarians, you can help raise awareness and propose concrete actions, particularly as they relate to MS prevention. This is particularly important when assessing the individual and economic burden of MS.
A recently released Deloitte Access Economics report estimates the annual cost of MS at more than $3.4 billion and rising.
Please allow me to give you an example of this burden.
Amanda, who was diagnosed just 10 years ago, says, "There is no question that living with MS is costly to an individual, but the productivity lost and the health care costs affect our economy as well. As a 36-year-old woman living with MS on long-term disability with increasing health costs, I am one of 90,000 Canadians already costing our system. The toll MS has on our economy is why research for prevention is imperative for our government to invest. More Canadians are being diagnosed every day, and Canada leads the rates of MS globally. We should be taking the lead in partnering globally to answer why MS has become Canada's disease."
The federal government has an important opportunity to invest $15 million in MS research funding in partnership with MS Canada, leveraging our connections and expertise to focus and further our understanding of MS; to pursue leading-edge research on repair and regeneration; and to explore strategies to prevent MS such as identifying risk factors, understanding pre-clinical MS and testing interventions to prevent MS.
With less than 1% of the current federal health research dollars being currently earmarked for MS research, this is simply too little for Canadian women suffering from this life-altering disease, a disease that could arguably be prevented.
In closing, we would like to reiterate the urgency of investing in women's health research, which will benefit all Canadian women, including those who live with MS.
Thank you.