Monday, February 15, 2010

Breakthrough Gives Hope For Cure To MS

This is amazingly good news (published in Yahoo! today):

(Quote)
Multiple sclerosis researchers have made an important breakthrough sparking hope of a cure for the disease.

The University of Buffalo study in New York opens the possibility of identifying a treatment for the degenerative condition.

There is already evidence that sufferers are benefiting from surgery which unblocks veins in the neck.

Sky's health correspondent, Thomas Moore, described the breakthrough as "tantalising evidence".

"This could change the way we view multiple sclerosis," he said.

The treatment is not yet available in this country but Martin Jones travelled to Poland for surgery.

"These are only early days, but it's looking good so far," he said.

"It's made a large difference to my symptoms.

"I have warm feet. I have stopped choking on my food. My balance is better.

"I have less twitching at night, in fact that's stopped."

The American study backs initial study findings in Italy.

More than 55% of MS patients participating in the Buffalo research were found to have the neck abnormality, a condition called chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI.

Robert Zivadinov, associate professor of neurology and principal investigator on the study, said he was "cautiously optimistic and excited" about the results.

MS is the most common disabling neurological condition affecting young adults, with 100,000 sufferers in the UK.

Researchers believe it is the result of damage to myelin - a protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres of the central nervous system.

When myelin is damaged, this interferes with messages between the brain and other parts of the body.
(End quote)

My only question is this: Why is this fantastic life-changing, and potentially life-saving, new treatment available in Poland but not in the UK? Did I miss some major news where Poland suddenly became one of the world's top 10 economic powers and the UK stopped being one? No, of course not. Here's the real reason why the UK is no longer as advanced as Poland in medicine:

Bankers take far too much money out of the economy and put very little back ("offshore banking and tax havens", anyone?!), and they more than anyone are responsible for the continuing global economic problems caused by "their" credit crunch in 2007. And those continuing economic problems are one of the chief causes of the NHS constantly being underfunded and being unable to provide all the medical care it could otherwise provide - there simply isn't enough money in the general economy. We can all see other very visible effects of that every day in the UK's high streets, for example.

It is time to make the bankers pay back a fair proportion of what they take out of the economy, for the good of everyone, including themselves in the long run - see my previous post about taxing bankers for the way to make that happen - and then important medical breakthroughs like this radical new MS treatment can be made available to everyone in the UK who needs them, for free, as per the primary mandate of the NHS! I mean really people, when have you ever seen a poor banker? We've all seen plenty of poor working-class people in the past year though, haven't we?!

2 comments:

cosmic_girluk said...

there are trials for this coming up in the UK - AND they're opening clinics for this at the end of the year.
Stick closer to the research and get on facebk.
You'll find that it is being done worldwide and there are plenty of pages on it - just do a google search and you'll end up on the facebk sites where there are the bottom-line groups getting things done!!!
sign the uk petition here:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CCSVINOW/

cosmic_girluk said...

ms-ccsvi-uk is a gd group to keep up-to-date on the UK news
CCSVI in Multiple Sclerosis is a group run by a woman whose husband has has the procedure done in the US,
Michelangelo'S Angels is the group I run on Facebook which has the petitions from the US, UK, Australia, Italy and worldwide.
Honestly, get on these groups and have a look at how much is being done by all of us!! Join in with us and make the procedure available to everyone!! :)