Now that an Italian doctor seems to have unraveled the mystery of multiple sclerosis, you’d think the Canadian and US multiple sclerosis societies would be jumping for joy. Oddly, they’re not.

Here’s the background. In 1995, Elena Ravalli, wife of Paolo Zamboni, a professor of medicine at the University of Ferrara in Italy, came down with MS symptoms. Her husband did some research and what he found showed that MS is not an autoimmune condition, but a vascular disease possibly caused by an excess of iron in the blood. In more than 90 per cent of people with multiple sclerosis, including Dr. Zamboni’s wife, the veins draining blood from the brain were malformed or blocked. In people without MS, they were not.

The experimental surgery he performed on his wife offers hope that MS, which afflicts 2.5 million people worldwide, can be cured and/or largely prevented just by clearing the arteries that lead to the brain.

While medical researchers in Canada and the US are trying to determine how effective the artery clearing therapy is, the MS societies in both countries are strangely aloof.

Canada’s Globe and Mail reports that the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada says, “There is insufficient evidence to suggest that this phenomenon is the cause of MS.”

SINCE THIS WAS POSTED, THE CANADIAN MS SOCIETY HAS MOVED TO INVESTIGATE THE VASCULAR APPROACH TO MS TREATMENT.

The US society even discourages patients from getting tested or seeking surgical treatment. Rather, it continues to promote drug treatments used to alleviate symptoms, which include corticosteroids, chemotherapy agents and pain medication. Its web site does, however, discuss Dr. Zamboni’s findings in the research section and refers to (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2009; 80:392-399) where his findings were published.

Who knows what’s behind this lack of joy from the MS societies, but if I had a family member afflicted with MS, I wouldn’t be supporting MS societies. I’d be  spending the money on a ticket to Italy.

For Dr. Zamboni's wife, Elena, and many others who have had the surgery,  scans and neurological tests show the multiple sclerosis is, for all intents and purposes, gone. The results may not yet be enough for those in the medical research community, but they represent a very strong argument for those of us in the medical reality community.