Interest fading in New Brunswick funding for controversial MS treatment

FREDERICTON - Two years after New Brunswick decided to help multiple sclerosis patients pay for an unproven treatment that's only offered outside the country, the number of patients who have sought the so-called liberation treatment has fallen short of expectations.

A leading authority on MS says he's not surprised the numbers are falling off.

The Finance Department says since April 1, 2011, 82 people who wanted the treatment that widens constricted veins in the neck have been approved for payments of $2,500 each. Applicants get the government funding if a community group raises matching funds.

The provincial government budgeted $400,000 for the program in its first two years of operation or enough to help 160 people seek the treatment.

The government approved 25 applications in the first four months the money was available, but interest has tapered off and there have been no applications in the last two months.

"It's getting fewer and fewer because every month a negative study is coming out," said Dr. Jock Murray, a neurologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Italian vascular specialist Paolo Zamboni reported dramatic improvements in his patients after he pioneered the procedure, but Murray said none of the subsequent studies done around the world have had the same results.

"Every study has tended to be negative," he said.

The University of Buffalo recently reported that a study of 30 MS patients showed the treatment had no benefit on numerous measures of symptoms, disease progression and quality of life.

Through MRI scans, researchers also showed some patients had increased brain lesions, one of the hallmarks of the progressive neurological disease, after undergoing the vein-opening procedure.

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Interest fading in New Brunswick funding for controversial MS treatment