This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

here's one of my replies I rather find offensive...


I am writing to respond to your email and express my thoughts.

...blah, blah, blah...

Thanks for expressing your views. Coincidentally, I have received many other emails with the same text.

Yours truly,

Dennis Patterson

Senator for Nunavut

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Thank you for your email today, asking for my support for Bill S-204, an Act to establish a national strategy for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI).



Please be assured that I strongly support this bill. It was introduced in the Senate by my colleague, Senator Jane Cordy, and is the result of extensive work by Senator Cordy and our Liberal caucus colleagues in the House of Commons, notably Dr. Kirsty Duncan together with Dr. Hedy Fry and Dr. Carolyn Bennett.



We were pleased when, two days after Senator Cordy tabled her bill, the government reversed its position, and announced that it would proceed with clinical trials of CCSVI. This decision took far too long – we have been calling on the federal government to fund clinical trials of CCSVI in Canada for more than a year – and as you point out in your email, there are still too many unanswered questions.



Canada has one of the highest rates of MS in the world. It is a devastating, unpredictable disease, that takes a terrible toll on patients and their loved ones. Canadians urgently need well-designed clinical trials to establish whether indeed CCSVI can improve the quality of life for those living with MS.



Bill S-204, as you know, calls for clinical trials in multiple centres across Canada (and sets a start date no later than January 1, 2012), but it also requires the Minister of Health to convene a conference with her provincial and territorial counterparts, to establish a national strategy for CCSVI.



I continue to believe that such a national strategy would be the appropriate way to proceed.



Last Wednesday, September 21, Dr. Kirsty Duncan introduced essentially the same bill in the House of Commons (with a slightly revised timetable), Bill C-280. Unfortunately, with a Conservative majority in both Houses of Parliament, I am not optimistic that either bill will succeed. Your efforts in writing to parliamentarians expressing support for these initiatives will undoubtedly help in pressing the government on this issue.



Thank you for taking the time to write to me about this important issue.



Yours very truly,



James S. Cowan

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
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