Mr. Speaker, today people living with MS are protesting across this country, including on Parliament Hill, for clinical trials for the new liberation procedure for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency or CCSVI.
Over 1,500 liberation procedures have been performed worldwide, with researchers from Bulgaria, Italy, Kuwait and the United States showing similar results, namely that 87% to 90% of MS patients show venous abnormality. Of the 400 cases reviewed by Canada's Dr. MacDonald, 90% show a venous problem and, of the 381 patients angioplastied, the gold standard, by Dr. Simka in Poland, 97% show a problem.
We need evidence-based medicine in Canada. Again, I call on the government to collect the evidence through clinical trials and a registry. Time is brain and any delay in clinical trials possibly means more damage and may mean the difference between walking and not walking, living on their own or in care, or living and not.