Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition regarding the liberation procedure.
Currently 75,000 Canadians live with devastating multiple sclerosis. They have the courage to battle their disease every day and now have the courage to take on a new fight, the fight for clinical trials for the liberation procedure.
We need evidence-based medicine here in Canada and that is why we need clinical trials. We do not need more correlational studies: Bulgaria, Italy, Kuwait, the United States, and Poland all show that most MS patients have venous abnormalities.
Today, over 2,500 procedures have been undertaken worldwide, and the world experts told the neurological subcommittee that the procedure is safe and needed. The government chose not to listen to this committee.
The petitioners are therefore asking for a nationwide clinical trial for the evaluation of venography and balloon venoplasty for the treatment of CCSVI and persons diagnosed with MS.