Are drug companies blocking new MS treatment?

That's one of the latest theories on the controversial liberation therapy treatment that's pitted MS sufferers against their government and doctors.

The controversial multiple sclerosis treatment known as liberation therapy continues to garner ink in the op-ed pages. MS patients desperately want the government to fund trials into the treatment, pioneered by the Italian Paulo Zamboni. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s never been proven in accepted studies, or perhaps because "Zamboni" isn't exactly synonymous with medical respectability for most Canadians, but so far most doctors and policy-makers won’t commit.

MS patients have launched a highly organized pro-liberation therapy campaign using online resources, and the National Post’s Shaun Francis surmises the medical establishment “would prefer to be dealing with the comparatively subservient public that existed before the Internet.” Francis puts a lot of faith in the accuracy of online information when he slams “the doctors who decry the Internet as dangerous, because it equips patients with all sorts of information on treatment” but has a defensible point when he asks “why should physicians and governments have all the power … (w)hy can’t customers decide the risks for themselves(?)”

One issue rarely raised in this debate is what influence drug companies might have on policy-making. The “power of the pharmaceutical companies can't be underestimated,” writes the Province’s Jody Paterson, especially because “people with MS use $20,000 to $40,000 worth of prescription drugs every year.” If liberation therapy (which is a surgical procedure, not a drug regimen) is vindicated, that’s a lot of profits down the drain. “Drug companies are very good at public relations, to the point that everyone from researchers to doctors to advocacy groups and ‘grass-roots’ health organizations ends up compromised.”

An editorial in the Montreal Gazette says that a University of Alberta researcher may have just recently found the gene responsible for MS, and speculates what a disaster it would be if her research proves promising and we’ve already dedicated all of our funding to Zamboni’s unproven therapy. “The moral is obvious: Until the cause of MS is established, we have to be careful not to assume too much about any particular treatment or approach.”