Controversial MS treatment on agenda as health ministers meet

So-called “liberation therapy” gives patients hope, but most doctors say it doesn’t work.

Provincial and territorial health ministers are meeting in St. John’s today, and liberation therapy is expected to be the subject of intense discussion. The treatment is unproven, and is based on the theory that MS is a vascular disease that can be treated with simple angioplasty. Current consensus is that MS is a complex autoimmune disease. Patient groups have been pressuring the government to fund trials of the therapy, but the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and even the Canadian MS Society don’t believe it’s worth pursuing. Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall announced his province would fund trials earlier this year, and is trying to convince other jurisdictions to follow suit.