Cheerleader has just posted an excellent article on her site Joan Beal “MS: The Vascular Connection” titled “Turf War”. Yes, of course the Neurology lobby has had the power to undermine (if not outright destroy) work on CCSVI in the USA, the Vascular component in MS, even though Science continues to demonstrate its validity. We aren’t really talking Science here but power, vested interests, social hierarchy, money. The entire medical industrial complex has a vested interest in maintaining the auto-immune theory of MS and treatment with DMD’s – MRI equipment, spinal taps, lab tests, drugs, neurologist office visits etc.
Direct quote from her site (hope she doesn’t mind)
Me again: If Joan (cheerleader) is frustrated by the situation in the US, she would be even more so in France where Neurologists enjoy very high status, are extremely arrogant and apparently have intimidated even an MS patient mutual support group. (I now intend to translate articles in English on CCSVI on the French site– at least to review them – even though it’s a lot of work and I dislike doing it.)Read "Social constructionism and medical sociology: a study of the vascular theory of multiple sclerosis" a paper specifically addressing this divide, which was published in 1988.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 3/abstract
brief excerpts below:
"A recent debate surrounding the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis is analysed in terms of the skills, interests and backgrounds of the medical personnel involved. It is noted that the proponents of the vascular theory possess developed expertises in interpreting disease in structural, vascular terms, whereas their opponents' skills lie in immunology or neurology. Different observers have produced different conceptions of the disease because modes of observation, and the points from which observation takes place, differ. It is also noted that the debate over the causation and treatment of MS has occurred between a large and powerful social group (neurology) and a weak and marginal one (vascular specialists). The effects of this power inequality on the production an assessment of knowledge about MS are investigated. "
The paper goes on to discuss the very real turf war between vascular researchers and neuroimmunologists:
VASCULAR:
"Support for the idea of early vascular involvement in the aetiology of MS has also come from researchers working with the tomographic scanner. One of the standard techniques used in sectional radiography is a process whereby a radio-opaque dye is injected into the bloodstream, thus enabling any leakage through the walls of the blood-vessels to be readily observed. In other words tomographers possess well-developed skills in the study of lesion events within the vascular system. When these skills have been applied to the investigation of MS they have revealed fresh vascular features.
"The dominant anatomic feature of multiple sclerosis is the relation of plaques to the venous component of the vascular system. The plaques, at least in the early stages, are almost always perivenular, extending as slender sleeves of demyelination. "
VS. NEUROLOGY:
"Furthermore, the clinicians who treat MS patients have always been neurologists - who tend routinely to conceive of MS as being essentially, as well as symptomatically, a neurological disorder.
Also the therapeutic implications of the auto-immune theory are generally pharmacological - involving modes of treatment with which most neurologists are already very familiar and in which they possess developed skills. A new drug treatment for MS, even the trial of a new drug, could be accommodated into existing clinical routines with little difficulty."
Joan appears frustrated by this situation since she has the personal experience of her husband Jeff’s recovery through Angioplasty at Stanford in 2009 and has since been a driving force in research and promotion of CCSV. For me the stubborn resistance of Neurologists to alternative ideas is more of the same since I began successful alternative therapy with a Kinesiologist/Naturopath in 1984 who put me on a Terry Wahl’s type diet/program re-inforced with energy therapies. However, my healer didn’t figure out the fluid/blood circulation factor and when I moved to France I abandoned the program, with predictable sorry results.
I STAUNCHLY BELIEVE THAT IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT THE BLOOD CIRCULATION FACTOR IN MS I WOULD HAVE NO HANDICAP TODAY.
That is why I want to get the word out, to give people the chance to help themselves. Not everyone can control “attacks” through massage or acupuncture or osteopathy as I can. Some will need Angioplasty. (It might help me as well but I am now 67 and am doing OK so won’t take the slightest risk.)
The issue now is not so much one of SCIENCE but of POLITICS – POWER. Armed with current scientific research patients themselves need to fight back with the help of friends, family (because when you are sick you don’t have the will and strength to fight.) Sites like ThisisMS.com contribute enormously to the struggle. I hope participants continue to seek out and post research.
As part of my campaign to GET THE WORD OUT , I am posting an article on DAILY KOS titled MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: CCSVI UPDATED 2016 previously posted on the main page of my site <MScureenigmas.net> (and published here on ThisisMS.com on Feb 23, 2016 9:27 a.m.)
I have altered the time of posting which is why I’m repeating this here.
Look up Daily Kos and hit “Diaries” (unless they post it on the Front Page which I doubt.) To comment one must register.
Title: Multiple Sclerosis: CCSVI Updated 2016
Author: Verokos
To be Posted: March 2, 2016: 5:30 p.m. CET (which will be 11:30 am EST and 8:30 am PST).
The time may be slightly off if I've mishandled the post, or my computer breaks down, but generally I think it should go off as scheduled.
Since my previous posts on Daily Kos have given rise to a series of vicious troll comments I’m hoping, those interested in MS and/or CCSVI will comment intelligently on my post so as to be informative. I welcome criticism where warranted, I may be misinformed and will stand corrected. But I want to get the word out and Daily Kos has a large public. (In fact it was through that site that I first learned about “Liberation Therapy” in 2010.)
Thanks much, Vesta