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Lyon wrote:This article is almost a month old but is sensible and well written. If it had been posted earlier it was glossed over too quickly.
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Bob,

Don't you just love when newspapers get involved to "clear" the air!

When Dr. Paolo Zamboni went public in 2009 with his belief, based on scant research, that multiple sclerosis was not an auto-immune disease and was instead a result of iron buildup that narrowed key veins to the brain, two warring tribes formed fairly quickly: Team Liberation and Team Status Quo.

Unless I remember incorrectly, Zamboni's original press conference on Canadian TV didn't say that MS was caused by iron build up but indicated the vein blockages he found in some 70 patients he tested. I believe he theorized the iron problem and said more research would be needed. If anybody remembers differently, please let us know.

but on Tuesday a scientific working group reviewed the preliminary results of those trials and recommended the government jump in with its own small-scale trials.

Our findings point against CCSVI having a primary causative role in the development of MS.

Hmmm...almost sounds like the conclusive nature we know about MS today!!!

Harry

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This is saying that iron is building up in the veins and that it is this iron build-up that is causing narrowings.

That is a far cry from saying that valve malformations are functioning as outflow obstructions and that, via diapedesis, red blood cells are crossing the BBB where they eventually break apart into their components, including hemosiderin, which is not healthy for the brain.

We do not have clumps of iron in our veins, akin to clumps of fatty deposits in our arteries.

More to the point, while there might be some kind of correlation between MS and blocked veins, it seems rather impossible to square Dr. Zamboni’s belief that blocked veins cause MS with the fact that more than 40% of MS patients do not have them. Note that Dr. Beaudet of CIHR spoke on Wednesday only in terms of correlation, not causation.

I think I heard somebody arguing with the boogey-man again. Could it be?

Amazing! I missed you guys! Funny how things start to look so different than they did yesterday. You take matching vacations, or what?

Lyon wrote:Well it's awful hard to be sure how the game is going to be played. Nine times out of ten you ccsvi proponents don't want to be bogged down by facts but now it's obvious that when things aren't in favor of the theory of ccsvi the facts suddenly become important. With that in mind, to my awareness Zamboni never said that MS isn't autoimmune and in fact he specifically stated that MS is autoimmune

Bob,

It's unfortunate that you are arbitrarily classifying me as a CCSVI proponent. From the very beginning, I've stated that I found Zamaboni's theory very interesting but it would take a ton of research to see if it panned out. Please don't infer that I chose not to look at the science because that was never the case.

I also commented from the very first time I saw the interview that it would create a very ugly battle between his theory and our established world of MS medicine. How right I was on that!

At the same time I wasn't surprised by the latter group on how hostile some of them began their attacks on Zamboni. While many medical people raised their eyebrows at such a different approach to MS, some chose to begin looking at the science as opposed to bad mouthing him...ie: Freedman. I criticize those people as much if not more than those who have gone ahead full speed without regard to planning the science required.

As usual, your sarcasm continues to follow you around closely when it comes to CCSVI. Give it a chance....science usually trumps fiction unless you have a great marketing department that can convince people otherwise.

Harry