Scooter Poster

Q. How Does The Canadian Government  Defeat the “No Death Penalty Law?

1. They let sick people die by refusing them available treatment.

Approximately 75,000 Canadians with MS are being allowed to die without treatment.

Venoplasty is a viable treatment against the symptoms. It is used in Canada everyday – just not on MS Patients or people with CCSVI. Their drugs often kill us faster and more cruelly and YOU pay for them!

Call your M.P. and your M.P.P. and complain. Venoplasty not only works for most; it is only a fraction of the price.

In South Ottawa call your MPP, Dalton McGuinty at Tel: (613) 736-9573

In South Ottawa call your MP, David McGuinty at Tel: (613) 990-8640

If you allow them to discriminate  against us, it will be just a matter of time before they discriminate against you!

Canadian Medical Association

The letter below was sent to Dr. Jeff  Turnbull of the Canadian Medical Association by the people who signed it  - people who have already been treated for CCSVI or about to undergo it. I am in the process of sending it to every newspaper in Ontario (as I write this I have sent to about 50% of the newspapers who offer emails). For those paper readers who were sent here to read the entire letter, (some can only print highlights due to space allowances)  welcome. Feel free to check out any pages herein. We hope you do not suffer from MS or CCSVI and just came here for information. If you do suffer from MS or CCSVI, know there is hope for us and please join us in fighting to realize that hope.

Karen Copeland
MSDragonSlayer


To: The Editor

The letter below was sent out to Mr. Turnbull . It is self explanatory. It is also something people with MS in your area should know about and people who do not have MS but may face it one day should know about. If you could find a spot in your newspaper to print it, we would be grateful.


Sincerely,

Karen Copeland



22 March 2011



Dr. Jeff Turnbull

President

Canadian Medical Association

1867 Alta Vista Drive

Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 5W8



Dear Dr. Turnbull,



We are writing to you about multiple sclerosis (MS).  While thirteen names of MS sufferers, or family members of MS suffers, are attached to this letter, each one of us represents hundreds of MS sufferers and families across Canada.



The MS world was turned upside down in November 2009 when the work of Dr. Paolo Zamboni was brought to the attention of the public in Canada and around the world in a W5 documentary.  W5 reported that Dr. Zamboni found that blood is refluxing into the brains and spinal columns of MS sufferers due to malformations of the vascular system, primarily the jugular veins, the azygous vein and, in some people, the iliac vein.  Dr. Zamboni did not invent the vascular component of MS; that component has been studied and observed by scientists since 1839.  The International Union of Phlebology, whose members are venous experts, confirmed in December 2009 that the venous malformations Dr. Zamboni described as Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency or CCSVI are, in their opinion, congenital and preceding MS lesions.



Treatment for CCSVI is balloon angioplasty. It is a well-known, low risk procedure developed by Dr. Andreas R. Guentzig in the 1970s that quickly became a standard of care without any double-blinded, randomized, controlled clinical trials.  Treating patients led to knowledge that led to the protocols followed today.



Thousands of MS sufferers in Canada felt a surge of hope.  Until November 2009, those MS sufferers with relapsing-remitting MS could take expensive disease modifying drugs that recent studies have shown to be ineffective in slowing progression of the disease or in reducing relapses (see Appendix to this letter).  In some cases, MS sufferers were made worse by the drugs; in other cases MS sufferers lost their lives to them and others are still struggling.  Tysabri, as of 4 March 2011, has been linked to 21 deaths and permanent brain infection in 102 people.  The numbers increase monthly as Biogen reports new cases of PML as required by law.  The newest entry in the drug market is Gilenya.  It has its own side effects that include, but are not limited to, permanently slowed heart rate, liver damage, macular edema, eczema, increased hypertension, and reduced white blood cell count.  But the MS neurologists who are front-line marketers of the new drug assure MS sufferers that the side effects do not manifest immediately.  It may be fortunate for MS sufferers with other, more aggressive types of MS that no drug treatment is available for them.


In the past 16 months, Canadian MS sufferers have been subjected to unprecedented levels of discrimination.  They are denied access to a simple procedure that is available to any other Canadian requiring venoplasty for other medical conditions and who has not been labeled “MS”.  They are forced to fight for their lives and the lives of their families and are forced to leave Canada on a quest for an improved quality of life to seek treatment in countries that, from their point of view, appear far more progressive and inviting than Canada.


 Why are Canadian MS sufferers denied treatment in their own country?  Dr. Zamboni’s work has been attacked by MS neurologists, especially research neurologists backed by pharmaceutical companies with enormous MS drug markets, who may be suffering from the Semmelweiss Reflex.  The Semmelweiss Reflex is a metaphor for the reflex-like rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs or paradigms.


MS sufferers are well aware that MS is a multi-billion dollar a year industry and that the only groups that benefit from this industry are MS neurologists and pharmaceutical companies.  MS sufferers are also aware that neurologists may be experiencing Gatekeeper Syndrome in addition to Semmelweiss Reflex; Gatekeeper Syndrome is described as a lack of interest in anything, no matter how important to your work, that does not involve you being a gatekeeper.  MS sufferers know that MS neurologists are furious that a vascular surgeon has illustrated so well that the unproven autoimmune theory for MS that the MS neurologists have chased for over 60 years is, in fact, wrong and has achieved very little for MS sufferers.  Two international conferences held this month, one in Poland and one in Italy, were highlighted by studies that will soon be published that confirm Dr. Zamboni’s work and the improvement in the quality of life for MS sufferers who have been treated for CCSVI (see www.isnvdannualmeeting.org/press-area.html, International Society for Neurovascular Disease).



However, MS is a lucrative Industry that supports the MS neurologists and the pharmaceutical companies and perhaps that fact is the reason for the fury of the MS neurologists – the money they receive from pharmaceutical companies in research funding, consultancy fees and speaking honoraria is threatened by CCSVI which represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of MS.  One prominent MS neurologist has stated that CCSVI will ultimately be proven to be a hoax and has labeled those people who think there is merit to CCSVI “cultists”.  However, 60 years and billions of dollars of research and the same MS neurologists have not proven viral or autoimmune theories as the cause of MS.  Not one MS Society or pharmaceutical company world-wide can state with absolute certainty that MS is strictly an autoimmune condition nor can they explain what causes MS.



MS sufferers are also aware that the MS Society of Canada has behaved badly regarding CCSVI and has failed to live up to its mandate.  It operates in a paternalistic manner and as more of a marketing arm for the pharmaceutical industry than as an advocate for MS sufferers.  That is not surprising since the MS Society here in Canada is run by the angry, disgruntled MS neurologists.



Unfortunately, and sadly for MS sufferers and their families, government officials listen to the MS Society of Canada and the neurologists who run it.  We have seen an alliance between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the MS Society which resulted in a secret meeting in August 2010 with a panel of non-experts considering the merits of CCSVI.   Many of the panel members have severe conflicts of interests and the panel included some of the angriest neurologists who have been vitriolic in their condemnation of Dr. Zamboni and CCSVI.  The outcome of that meeting was never in doubt since the Chairman, Dr. Alain Beaudet, admitted that CCSVI experts such as Dr. Sandy McDonald were deliberately excluded.  We have seen the Society launch unnecessary studies geared to obtaining information that we already have.  The studies are being conducted by neurologists.  The outcome of these studies is not in doubt.



Because of a small group of angry, disgruntled MS neurologists, Canadian MS sufferers, at great expense and hardship, are forced to travel to the United States, Mexico, Poland, Bulgaria, Malta, Egypt, Costa Rica and India to receive a treatment for a vascular condition that is readily available in Canada – except for MS sufferers.  The exact number of MS sufferers who have been treated worldwide for CCSVI is not known but estimates range from 12,000 to 15,000.  Those who have been treated report results that range from spectacular to moderate to minimal.



Because of a small group of angry, disgruntled MS neurologists, Canadian MS sufferers are denied adequate follow-up care in Canada after treatment.  Once again, the well-being of MS sufferers is compromised because they sought treatment for a vascular condition outside Canada when they are supposedly guaranteed the right to the treatment in Canada by the Canada Health Act.



Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss was hounded from his profession and eventually committed to an asylum; he tried to introduce hand washing to doctors to prevent women dying in childbirth from puerperal fever.  In the 1980s Dr. Barry Marshall was vilified by the medical community when he suggested that bacteria cause stomach ulcers; he had to give himself a stomach ulcer to prove his point.  He won a Nobel Prize for medicine.



There is nothing unethical, dangerous or controversial about balloon angioplasty.  What is dangerous and unethical is prescribing drugs to patients knowing that the drugs are ineffective and unsafe.  What is dangerous and unethical is working to deny people a treatment that is available in Canada and that is a right guaranteed to them.  What is dangerous and unethical is the wedge that has been driven between thousands of Canadians and the medical community in Canada.

We are aware, Dr. Turnbull, of your interest in re-vamping healthcare in Canada.  We would suggest to you that re-vamping the ethics of the doctors who deliver healthcare in this country should be your top priority.  The medical community is failing Canadians and it seems, as

Dr. Louis Francescutti (President, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada) mused in a recent interview, that too many doctors are more interested in protecting their vested interests than in taking care of their patients.  It is a sad state for Canadians.  It is a sad state for medicine in Canada.



We would like to know if CMA will publicly support MS sufferers acquiring access to testing and treatment for CCSVI in Canada.  We would also like to know if CMA will publicly urge doctors to provide follow-up care in Canada for MS sufferers who are treated for CCSVI outside Canada.



Sincerely,



Christopher Alkenbrack, (Nova Scotia), treated 2010 Poland

Francine Deshaies, (Quebec), treated 2010 and 2011 Poland

Judy Filipkowski, (Ontario), treated 2010 Albany, New York

Steve Garvie, (Ontario) treated 2010, Barrie, Ontario,

Chrystal Gomes, (Ontario), not treated

Myles Higgins, (Newfoundland and Labrador), brother-in-law of MS Sufferer

Val Hoenecke, (Saskatchewan), treated 2010 Poland

Linda Hume-Sastre, (Ontario), waiting list, Albany, New York

Watson McGregor, (Saskatchewan), treated twice 2010 Bulgaria

Carol Prest, (Alberta), sister of MS sufferer

Amy Preston, (Ontario), treated 2010 Albany, New York

Laurel Radley, (British Columbia) treated 2010 Australia

Michelle Walsh, (Saskatchewan), treated 2010 Bulgaria, 2011 California



APPENDIX

STUDIES ON DISEASE MODIFYING DRUGS

Boggild M, Palace J, Barton P, Ben-Shlomo Y, Bregenzer T, Dobson C, Gray R.,

Multiple sclerosis risk sharing scheme: two year results of clinical cohort study with

historical comparator. BMJ. 2009, 9 pages.



Ebers, G, Traboulsee A, Li D, et al., Analysis of clinical outcomes according to

original treatment groups 16 years after the pivotal IFNB-1b trial. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, in press, 6 pages.



Veugelers PJ, Fisk JD, Brown MG, Stadnyk K, Sketris IS, Murray TJ, Bhan V.,

Disease progression among multiple sclerosis patients before and during a

disease-modifying drug program: a longitudinal population-based evaluation. Mult Scler. 2009 Nov;15(11):1286-94.

Places to learn more
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_145432328854156&ref=notif&notif_t=group_activity#!/ccsvi.ms.toronto.canada 

and
http://ccsvi-ms.ning.com/
and 

http://msliberation.ca/MS_Liberation_Group/Welcome.html

Realistic Expectations

Realistic Expectations

Since this CCSVI Treatment became news back in 2009, I have watched (with envy) all the good pioneers we have among us who had the money, the courage and the Hope to give this a try. I have read a lot of really good results and I have joined others in aching over their lack of results.

Today, on Facebook, I read an item that puts things in their place; that make me sit back and be realistic in thinking about this treatment. I am going to share that with you here.

Michelle Walsh

FRAME OF MIND GOING INTO THIS CCSVI JOURNEY

I just want everyone who is going into their CCSVI Treatments soon to be in a realistic frames of minds so you don't set yourself up for disappointment.

I know there are alot of "Before" and "After" videos out there to watch and this is good to show you there is a reason to have HOPE. But what you need to know is we all experience different results after CCSVI and this takes months and months for some to even notice anything. This treatment first and foremost gets your blood flowing properly again and if this helps slow progression down of your MS then that is so worth it!

I did not have high expectations going into this except that I had nothing to loose and everything to gain by trying. I now have confirmation from my MS Neurologist that my SPMS in now "Clinically Stable" and this was all I could have ever wished for as we all know there is nothing that does that.

I just want you to remember there is a role you have to play in this too. We don't just get treated and then magically we are better. We still have MS. You have hard work ahead of you too. Not only do you need to start eating better for your vascular health but supplements to help with keeping the inflammation of your nerves down etc, exercising/physiotherapy to work on your weak and atrophied muscles, learn how to relax/meditate, and many other aspects to healing. This takes time and doesn't happen overnight. By these amazing Doctors who put you back in the 'Awesome Zone" of proper blood flow is a gift and not to waste that and enjoy everyday you wake up and have HOPE with this awful MS Monster we have. A cold/virus can make you think you have restenosed and its hard to not get anxious but really learning how to relax and just take it easy will help before you set the "Panic" button off. But remember if you do not feel right or you feel something might be going on then you need to call and talk to the office here right away the Doctors need to know this so they can help you plan the best course of action to take.

I never noticed my improvements at first that was my husband who did and he was also the one that said "Any improvements you get to help your MS Symptoms is like icing on a cake from here on in because you have had MS for 19 years-your whole adult life who knows if you have permanent damage?"
I have also had good days and bad days this is typical from what I have heard from other friends with all of this. It is what we refer to as the "roller coaster" ride. This group was created by patients for patients and we are all in this together and we are in this group to be positive and support to one another. So have a great day everyone!!

Out of Balls in Halifax and Ottawa

March 10, 2011

Looks Like we are Out of Balls in Halifax and Ottawa

Chrystal Bruce put a letter she wrote up on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/notes/crystal-ann-bruce/letter-to-heath-minister-maureen-macdonald-after-ctv-news-march-92010/10150447275125171

If one letter is good, lots of letters are better, so if you are a Canadian MSer or the relative of a Canadian MSer, and you would like the option of doing something proactive for those of us with MS, then write and tell the Minister of Health in your area and Leona Aglukkaq in Ottawa that it is your body and it should be your choice to have yourself checked out for CCSVI and then treated for it should the tests show venal blockages.

I did. Here is my letter to the two ladies (and I sent a cc to Deb Matthews as well.)

Dear Leona and Maureen,

Being as how you are both female, we don't expect balls. We expect more than balls. We expect strength and compassion and intelligence and logic.

Our female predecessors did not fight as hard as they did for our rights to end up back where we started - non-people with no rights, nothing but chattel because women like you appear to have relinquished your strength and compassion and intelligence and logic to what? Stephen Harper? Big Pharma? Puffed up, pontificating neuros who know nothing about MS? I have come to expect this from Conservatives but, Maureen, this is disgraceful conduct from an N.D.P.er.

What conduct? Your treatment of MSers in general and that of Bill and Donna Peart in particular.
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/family-plea/#clip430619

You talk about safety. Doing nothing is about as safe as a skier hit by an avalanche who finds he has no broken bones after his fall but, gee! He is buried under 20 feet of snow and can't breathe and there is no help on the way even though you know he is there. If you were that skier, you would want someone to help you. Not doing so is negligence. Death by negligence is murder. Death by negligence and for profit is murder of a higher degree. We cannot prove the profit angle yet but the circumstantial evidence is there and we're working on the hard copy evidence. There is no statue of limitations on murder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOW8LNU2hFE

Your time in office is not guaranteed beyond the next election. Right now, our time with MS is guaranteed for life. You ladies have verbal diarrhea on the subject of safety when it comes to venoplasty but you ok the use of drugs that already have killed people and are experimental and have already proven themselves useless as a treatment for MS. There is no logic in your arguments at all. There is no intelligence in your arguments at all. There is definitely no compassion for the MSers in your constituencies at all. There is no strength coming out of your offices at all. Abuse of power- yes; strength - no.

This is not a safety issue. Venoplasty is done daily in Canadian hospitals for other conditions. This is a power thing. If you need a refresher course on what happens to people who abuse their power, just turn on the evening news and watch the news out of the Middle East. Or you can check out our own history - go to the 1993 federal election.

Up until a year ago, give or take, I would not have wished MS on my worst enemy. That is not true anymore. Now I wish it on you. It seems to be the only way you will ever come down to earth and see what you are doing to those of us with MS. Then I hope you have to live with your own rules about it. Sadly for me, I do not own a genie in a bottle to grant that wish.

I can live for the day when I will see the electorate bring you down and then I can live for the day when I will see a judge's gavel put you away. Or I can live for the day you find some strength, some compassion, some intelligence and some logic on the subject of MS and CCSVI and venoplasty. You tell me which of those options I'll be cheering - Bill and other MSers being given back some quality of life or all of us cheering your demise.

Maureen, do something decent for Bill Peart and his family. Leona, do something for Canada's MSers. There, but for the Grace of God, goes you. Grace of God in matters of health is a fickle thing.

Very sincerely

Karen Copeland
MS dragonslayer
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA



--
Shame on Canada!
http://its-time-to-slay-the-ms-dragons.blogspot.com/
 

Go Ahead! Ask Me If I Am Angry!

February 25, 2011

I was going to email this to the Minister of Health. Then I realized that that is a horrific waste of pixels because she either deletes my letters or she files them in File 19 (aka the Garbage). When she does respond, she waits until she gets 8 or 10 letters and sends one standard form letter (You probably have one in your email if you have ever written her) and that letter does not address anything I have said. So if you feel she should see this, you tell her.

Regarding the Study on CCSVI in MS at The Ottawa Hospital,  http://www.nationalmssociety.org/research/intriguing-leads-on-the-horizon/ccsvi/ccsvi-study-by-torres-team/index.aspx 

It is, in my opinion, flawed even before it begins.

The MS Society, on their site say, “A total of 100 participants including participants with MS and healthy individuals. Participants will be recruited through The Ottawa Hospital MS Clinic Research Unit. Recruitment number is approximate and is subject to change.”

This is indeed amazing. If we do not know what causes MS and the MS Society say that on their site –“While the cause (etiology) of MS is still not known” and if a person can live with MS for more than 20 years without ever being diagnosed and, Oh My God! Those diagnoses are made in part by anecdotal data collected from and supplied by the patient who is rarely a scientist, how on earth can Dr. Torres and his colleagues know whether the people involved with his study have MS or not? However do they determine a “healthy” participant from an affected one? Perhaps 20 years down the road, based on anecdotal data about things like a strange one time bout with double vision that ophthalmologists cannot explain, they will indeed be told they have MS and have had it for decades. Diagnosing MS, for those not in the know, is not as easy as, say Lyme Disease, which can be discovered with a blood test.

Lyme Disease brings to mind another question. The symptoms of Lyme Disease and MS are very often very similar. In fact, many people who have Lyme Disease go around thinking they have MS – for decades! Why? Good Question! But there is a reason – sort of. Canadian doctors, for the most part, do not test for Lyme Disease and when they do, they usually use a test called the Canadian Elisa. They call it the gold standard. It would be more accurate to call it the Fools Gold Standard because it misses 99% of the bacteria forms that cause Lyme Disease. The more accurate test is hard to find in Canada – The Western Blot. ** To me, and I have to admit I am not a doctor so this is just a opinion, we should all be tested first and properly with the Western Blot for Lyme Disease before being labeled with MS. Lyme Disease responds pretty well to antibiotics and can be put behind the patient very quickly if they in fact have it. Presently, the people with Lyme Disease are walking around thinking they have MS. Their doctors are treating them like they have MS. Again for those not in the know, that may very well mean being given drugs such as tysabri (it has killed people but still they prescribe it!) or one of the C.R.A.B. drugs. Some of those drugs cost $3,000.00 or more per patient per month. Gee whiz Guys! It does not take a rocket scientist to see there is no logic in their methods. You eliminate the possibility of the common cold before you diagnose pneumonia. Similarly, you eliminate other possibilities like Lyme before you diagnose and sentence a person to hell with MS.

The ‘hell of MS’ is more than just the symptoms. Lord knows they are bad enough. MS truly is a label, a scarlet letter on your forehead. If my kidney fails and I need dialysis, I will probably be given vascular angioplasty more accurately called  venoplasty. If I happen to believe that Dr. Zamboni is right and that a good number of the people diagnosed with MS are in fact not suffering from MS but have a vascular problem called CCSVI (chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency) I cannot get the treatment. The reason? I have MS on my file. It is not safe?? Then why are they doing it for everyone else who needs it?? The Scarlet Letters are written all over my file and the people trained to do this have been threatened with loss of license if they even try. In fact, just about anything I, an MS patient, complain about is ignored – I have MS so it has to be the culprit??  I can’t suffer the same things other people do?? Because I have MS?? Not even a little bit logical.

It is also assumed that I am stupid. I get spoken down to the same way that white plantation owners spoke to their black slaves. It has since been very well established, on this Continent anyway, that that type of behaviour is discrimination, based on attitude, not facts. It ticks me off even more because of all the people I have met with MS, there is not one person with a lower than average IQ and indeed many who are above average. My IQ tested at 129 for most of my life. Go on any CCSVI/MS chat line or blog and you will meet very intelligent people, many are professionals like Dr.Bill Code. That attitude may have worked in the past but the days of it carrying on this way are numbered. We are no longer isolated. It does not take month or weeks or days or hours to get news anymore. It takes a fraction of a fraction of a second.

Those “experts” the Health Ministry uses re MS are “experts” at what?? It sure a hell is not MS. It is not CCSVI. It is not Lyme Disease.  No one – not even a spouse or parent – really knows what MS fatigue is because you really have to experience it. The experts are the MSers. The best even a spouse or a parent can do is empathize. Empathize. Now that is  a good word for all you folks on Parliament Hill to learn. Even better – try practicing it. Regardless of what Ministry you are in.

Have you ever watched the news where CCSVI is being talked about? One Ottawa MS neurosurgeon suggested on National TV that they needed to do blind studies to be sure the improvements people had were not a placebo effect. Guess he missed the day Placebos were discussed in med class. A placebo is “An innocuous or inert medication; given as a pacifier or to the control group in experiments on the efficacy of a drug”. Vascular angioplasty is a procedure, not a drug. New procedures are performed all the time. Remember heart transplants? Do you really think Dr. Barnard cut a second patient up and pretended to transplant a heart so he could compare the two? Or the first patient to ever have a severed limb put back on? Did they cut a patients limb off and pretend to reattach it to see if there was a placebo effect?  This guy is too unreal! But I see he is still on the list of doctors at the Ottawa General and I see he is still on the list of doctors at the MS Society.

I was just looking at the MS page again. They plan to spend $102, 866 over 2 years. The MS Society spends more than that on their big salaries and on office equipment every year. How bloody big of them! NOT!! If you are thinking that by giving to the MS Society you are helping us poor MSer, think again. They do not help us. They do not diagnose us properly. They stuff us full of drugs that cost big time and do nothing that they can prove. They consider anyone who thinks they may be mistaken about the autoimmune hypothesis (a hypothesis is only a theory) is a cultist. Mostly they make big bucks at our expense and yours. So take my advice and stop giving to them. If you have money to give away, give it to the Salvation Army who’s CEO makes a just above poverty line income. Give it to someone trying to get a real Lyme disease test. Give it to one of the organizations that have sprung up to help people get vascular angioplasty in the USA. Give it to the Angioplasty For All group who are putting together a legal case to help us get Angioplasty allowed in Canada. There have been more than 12,000 angioplasty procedures carried out worldwide. Not all have been the magical cure but we all know it is not a magical cure. It is a viable treatment though for those who should have been diagnosed with CCSVI and not MS. You can read about them on the Internet; you can watch their before and after videos at UTube. Being mobile a year after the procedure without the use of a wheelchair is no placebo effect.

Something I learned as a little kid – If you make a mistake, own up to it. You still might get a spanking but chances are you won’t. Chances are, also, that you will be given an opportunity to fix the wrong or at least try. It might have something to do with when I grew up – the late 40s and early 50s. My Father was a war vet; my Mother opened the house to war refugees. They all talked about the war and good old Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, When I was older the war became a big interest of mine – a chance to make sense of the stuff I heard but they didn’t think I paid any attention to. I learned a lot but mostly I learned that control and greed and hurting others leads to infamy instead of fame. It leads to horrid things happening to you. At the end of  WWII that meant being hung by your feet and paraded through the capital or dying in a bunker or spending the next 60 years being hunted down and hung or imprisoned. But this is Canada so I do not expect anything that desperate but I do expect that those who are keeping us sick when wellness is available; those taking our money for themselves and giving pain and suffering in return and those who are bullying us into capitulating are going to get theirs in the end.

Ms Aglukkaq, you were voted into office by your people to help your people. What have you done for them? As Minister of Health for Canada, you are expected by the Canadian people to do positive things towards helping the sick and disabled and to help the healthy stay healthy. Measuring the height of the lettering on cigarette packages is not impressive. Giving us 100 doctors for the outlying areas in a country the size of this one is not impressive. Not having a plan to keep them there by way of contract etc. is even less impressive. Listening to “experts” who are experts at nothing useful to MS patients is the least impressive thing you have done. I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em and his is how I see you and your Ministry. That’s my opinion. Now exactly what will you do to change my thinking? What are you going to do to stop this study and the waste of more Canadian taxpayer's money? My suggestion:1. Upgrade the testing for Lyme Disease and 2. Lift the ban on venoplasty for MS patients and 3. Fire the “panel of experts” you use on MS related matters – they are not experts in MS.

 Sincerely

Karen Copeland

MS Dragonslayer

**  From Terri - Actually , that lyme  test sucks to, ( Western blot ) the most accurate is by many this -

IgeneX, Inc.
Palo Alto, CA
800-832-3200, www.igenex.com
PCR test: $55, dead or alive. Can test for 5 things @ $55/test. MY choice
Turn-around time: 10 to 12 business days; ziplock bag.

Some light reading!  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/02/24/lyme-disease.html