MS patients fight for access to new 'Zamboni' treatment

Health Zone, 9 July, 2010

A month after Italian vascular surgeon Dr. Paolo Zamboni’s controversial report on treating multiple sclerosis made headlines in November 2009, an elated Jamie Chalmers went to his neurologist and handed him a stack of print-outs on the new findings.

Without so much as a glance, the neurologist tossed the papers in the garbage. He told Chalmers it was nothing but junk science.

“I was devastated,” said Chalmers, a 40-year-old Guelph motor coach driver diagnosed with MS two years ago. He is now looking for a new neurologist. “How can a doctor not be interested in what his patient wants?”

The same scenario, pitting hope against science, is being played out in neurologists’ offices across the country as people diagnosed with the debilitating disease demand the so-called “liberation treatment” and wary neurologists tell them to forget about it.

Read more: http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/article/834303--ms-patients-fight-for-access-to-new-zamboni-treatment