Feds to Fund Liberation Therapy Trials

While debate about the multiple sclerosis treatment rages, Ottawa decides to test out the procedure's effectiveness.

Trials of liberation therapy, a controversial treatment for multiple sclerosis sufferers, will get funding from the federal government after years of urging from MS activists to do so. The treatment, pioneered by the Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni, inserts a balloon into veins in the neck and slowly expands them, as Zamboni has argued that blocked veins could be a symptom, if not a cause, of multiple sclerosis. MS patients have had to fly to other countries to have the procedure done, including one man who died after getting it in Costa Rica this year. However, many leading MS researchers have cautioned against liberation therapy, as there has yet to be any proven link between blocked veins and MS.