This does not sound like a biased response to me to me but of course I am not aware of the thousands of various groups whose sole purpose is to discredit CCSVI.Direct-MS wrote:http://www.facebook.com/DIRECTMS?ref=mf
April 20, 2011 Dear Ashton, Your interest in our multiple sclerosis (MS) research over the past years and the collegial relationship we have developed has been much appreciated by us both. It was our pleasure to visit you in Calgary last year and speak to the people there about our research. We regret that you and your Board are disappointed that the findings or interpretations of our published research in the April, 2011 issue of Neurology did not produce the results you had hoped for. We have both read your detailed critique on Facebook of our peer-reviewed paper and recognize that you have issued very serious charges about the integrity of our research and the conclusions we have drawn. We believe, however, that the best forum in which to conduct this very important debate would be a Letter to the Editor to the Neurology journal, a step we encourage you to take. In this way, your concerns will go formally on record to others in the broader medical community, who can then evaluate your criticism and respond. We will have an opportunity to respond as well, also on record. This is the way science advances. We hope you will accept the invitation to use this recognized way of refuting our findings. We also feel this method of criticism will be the most effective way to achieve our common goal of advancing the understanding of venous constriction and how that may be related to MS. This CCSVI paper we published is one of many we are working on. When taken individually, each paper may have conclusions that could seem to contradict findings of the others. Some have shown a positive correlation and others did not. We are all still at the beginning of understanding CCSVI, so it is premature to issue any definitive pronouncements one way or the other. The essential message we want to communicate is this: So far, we are finding a higher prevalence of CCSVI in patients with MS but not to a degree that would indicate that CCSVI causes MS, the hypothesis we are testing. However, based on this particular CCSVI study and others we have done and others not yet published, we are learning that regardless of whether or not CCSVI causes MS (as this study suggests it does not), CCSVI is a factor for a significant number of MS patients. That makes this particular study and continued research very important to understanding how to help MS patients and others who have CCSVI. Whatever the final outcomes are of this debate and our research, please recognize the truly monumental ways The Direct-MS Foundation has contributed to the understanding of MS and possibly to other diseases and the understanding of aging. We regret you declined the request for Robert to come to Calgary to discuss this with you in person. Although you have broadcast your accusations on Facebook and they are circulating around the Internet, we wanted to respond to you with an invitation to come visit us in Buffalo instead. We hope you will accept. With best regards, Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, MDRobert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, FAAN