Mr. Chair, we are all here tonight to speak about a very important subject that affects the lives of many Canadians and many people around the world. Before I get into what I have to say, a lot of people here tonight are very passionate about this. Some have tried to politicize this and I would remind members on all sides of the House that we get nowhere in doing that. This is not a subject to politicize and I think we should all respect that.
Multiple sclerosis has touched my immediate family, as it has the member for Lethbridge and the member for Welland, and the families of many of my constituents. Canada is known to be a very high risk area for MS. My sister Marylou has MS. Many other people with MS in Canada are counting on all of us here to do as much as possible as quickly as possible to find treatments and eventually a cure.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease that randomly attacks the central nervous system, affecting the control a person has over his or her body. Symptoms may range from numbness to blindness to paralysis.
I want to thank the minister for her attention to this health issue and this take note debate. I have had a very good working relationship with the minister, who has always been attentive to the issue of MS and sensitive to the concerns of MS patients. She does understand how debilitating and devastating neurological diseases can be for those affected.
In 2008-09, we invested $120 million for neurological diseases, including $5.3 million for MS alone, through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In fact, since 2001, we have invested over $45 million in MS research. Today, however, I want to talk a little about chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, also known as CCSVI for short, and how it looks promising as a possible new treatment for MS.
I know that the minister and the government recognize that the findings of Dr. Zamboni provide great hope for Canadians suffering with MS. Patients like my sister, my friends and neighbours, including Tammy Graver, Mandy Maisonneuve and Dianne Hepburn, just to name a few, and other Canadians see this new treatment as a great chance to improve their health and as something worth trying as soon as possible. It has given them a level of hope they have not had in years. Let us all work together to bring that hope to fruition.
We all know that provincial and territorial governments make decisions on matters related to the administration and delivery of health services, including decisions regarding the treatment and diagnosis of CCSVI. However, we also know that both levels of government have a role here. Rather than politicize this issue, as I said earlier, let us have all parties, all of us here tonight, work together for the benefit of all MS sufferers.
I want to remind Health Canada and the national MS Society, for which I have great respect, that they need to play a leadership role to fast-track the necessary research and approval process so that Canadian patients can get access to this promising treatment as soon as possible. I want to take this opportunity to ensure that the provinces, if they are listening, know that I fully support embracing this new treatment as rapidly as possible and as safely as possible and devoting some health care and research dollars toward it.
They need to ensure that MS patients have the access to the diagnostics and MRIs that are required to determine what course of treatments can best help them. Research plays an important role in confirming and validating new scientific findings and Health Canada and the MS Society need to do all they can to help the provinces and territories determine implications for treatment.
That is why the minister has asked Dr. Alain Beaudet, president of the CIHR, to provide advice to the government on how to advance research in this important area. The CIHR is consulting with the research community and will be convening, in collaboration with the MS Society of Canada, an international meeting of top scientists to identify research priorities for Canada and accelerate research and innovation on MS.
I know the minister will continue to work with the MS Society and the CIHR to encourage researchers to apply for funding in order to further the research for CCSVI and MS. No other government has committed as much as ours has for neurological diseases, including MS. We do not have a cure yet, but we will. I feel very strongly about that.
We need to get the provinces and Health Canada to move faster because people's lives hang in the balance. The better treatments for MS we can get our patients access to, the better their lives will be.
I want to tell everyone a little more about what CCSVI is and where we are at on it. I want to let everyone know the decision to fund the research in Canada was spurred by the overwhelming interest in the results of a recent study by Italian vascular surgeon, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a professor of medicine at the University of Ferrara in Italy.
Dr. Zamboni has suggested that CCSVI could be a cause of MS and reported that a procedure to alleviate it has reduced the symptoms in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis.
On that note, my sister is about to get the test in Barrie, Ontario to see if she can have this treatment. It is just one part of the process. We wish her well in that.
The MS Society describes CCSVI as a hypothetical disruption of blood flow in which the venous system is not able to efficiently remove blood from the central nervous system, resulting in increased pressure in the veins of the brain and spinal cord, which in turn results in damage to those areas.
Dr. Zamboni has revived the idea that this disruption in blood flow and drainage is present in people with MS and has devised an experimental procedure that involves removing the blockage in the veins that carry blood to and from the brain.
So far, he has performed the angioplasty-like surgery on 120 MS patients, including his wife whose multiple sclerosis provoked his interest in tackling the disease.
There has clearly been a great deal of work done in Italy on this new treatment, and it is key that we move more quickly to make these new treatments and research available to those it may help. In short, we must accept the progress achieved by Dr. Zamboni.
I think the MS Society and our health departments have been a little too cautious, with all due respect, with a take-it-slow approach, but we should respect the medical expertise in Europe that has developed this treatment and evaluate it as quickly as possible.
I want to thank the minister for the funding she has made available so far. I firmly believe we should continue to fund MS research as a high priority and fast-track the CCSVI treatment research.
I want to encourage medical researchers to pursue new treatments for MS and make use of the research dollars the minister has made available. Early treatment of MS is important, as it is in any disease, and access to proven therapies should not be restricted by where a person with MS happens to live.
According to Dr. Joel Oger, a neurologist at UBC and one of the co-authors of a consensus statement on the use of MS therapies, there is increasing evidence that damage to nerve fibres occurs early in MS, and it is important that all people with active disease be treated as early as possible. New information about how MS causes damage within the central nervous system is making early treatment all the more important.
One of the main problems MS patients face is an overly bureaucratic system that places too much decision-making authority on what treatments should be covered under our health care system with the panels of doctors, bureaucracies, provincial governments and possibly with insurance companies that may be involved.
At this point where we do not have a cure and only a limited number of effective treatments available for MS, some of the real decision-making power should be with the patients and their own personal attending physicians about what treatments they should be able to use to combat this debilitating and deadly disease.
We need to free up our physicians and their patients in these circumstances to try new treatments like CCSVI. Doctors who have criticized CCSVI should be more open-minded about possible new treatments and withhold their judgment until results can be confirmed or duplicated.
In fact, I am very disappointed in the comments by some doctors who have basically discarded Dr. Zamboni's treatment as bogus or without merit. They should put their pride aside and admit that there are possibly other ways to treat MS patients than the methods they have become accustomed to. In other words, they should keep an open mind about other possible procedures like CCSVI.
The MS Society of Canada has made arguments through its consensus statement that all current approved drug treatment should be offered to all people with MS who could benefit from treatment, and to ask provincial governments and third party payers to expand their criteria for drug cost reimbursement.
I must say I am also a little disappointed the MS Society has not yet taken an even broader approach to include more new treatment options that have shown promise, like CCSVI, and encourage the provinces to allow individual patients and doctors more freedom to choose their course of treatment.
In conclusion, I once again want to thank the minister for her attention to MS. On behalf of my sister, family and friends, I thank everybody who has participated in the debate tonight.
