Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I will ask again. This was discussed last night. I do not need the broader context. I would like to know specifically how much of the $16 million is being devoted to CCSVI, please—the number.

Health committee  Is it specific to CCSVI or more broadly to MS?

Health committee  I think there's concern among patients across the country that right now there is no treatment arm being funded in Canada. Of the $2.4 million, only $700,000.... I would like to also ask, who will be reviewing this? It's important, if we are going to look at CCSVI

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee   observed this kind of syndrome and have correlated the association of this CCSVI with a neurodegenerative disorder called multiple sclerosis. We describe it in the original group of patients in which we found a very strong association in 100% of people, and in our experience we've found

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Okay. We described the CCSVI treatment by means of standard balloon angioplasty in a paper published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery last December. According to our results, angioplasty was demonstrated to be safe. We never had major vascular complications and patients were

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee   by the means of MRI, and this also confirmed that this kind of treatment is protective for multiple sclerosis patients. My conclusions are that CCSVI exists and is a serious obstruction, a major vascular problem, whether a patient has multiple sclerosis or not. CCSVI is significantly

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee   diagnosed, the analysis of this data set has enabled us to draw some conclusions regarding links between CCSVI and multiple sclerosis and also regarding the safety of the treatment. First, CCSVI has been found to highly correlate with multiple sclerosis. Only 3% of the multiple

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  . But the question begs to be asked that if we are going to evaluate the notion, the hypothesis, that CCSVI and its treatment is related to and can benefit patients with MS, I think we have to do a proper, randomized, blinded, and controlled study to test the hypothesis, and not do what the MS

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee   sclerosis. The studies supported by this funding have provided significant new insights into the pathological mechanisms underlying MS. While the recently developed CCSVI treatment opens new potential therapeutic avenues for some of the patients suffering from MS, it is critical

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and subcommittee members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about CCSVI and its relationship to MS. I am speaking as a representative of the MS Society of Canada with previous experience as a basic researcher, with a focus in multiple sclerosis

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Thanks very much. Thanks to all of you. I'd like to begin with Dr. Zamboni's conclusions, which I think are worth repeating because they inform a lot of where a lot of the people in the room feel we need to go. They are as follows: CCSVI exists and is a serious

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee   with those different data in mind, we have to ensure that first steps are correctly looked into. Therefore, we have funded, with our American counterparts, $2.4 million towards further understanding the relationship between CCSVI and multiple sclerosis.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee   malformations inserted CCSVI in the official guidelines of the medical vascular society.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  . Beaudet, in the research that the minister talked about last night, the minister said that they are eagerly looking for applications for MS and specifically this new CCSVI. Is there going to be clinical research that involves treatment in that? What are the restrictions on the research

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I'll start first. So what we do understand in the scientific world is that you do need to provide further evidence. So right now, Dr. Zamboni's group has provided evidence in terms of CCSVI in MS; however, it's a very small group of people, so it's a pilot study, as Dr