Remember a few years ago, when a revolutionary vein-widening procedure called "liberation therapy" was all the rage as a cure for multiple sclerosis (MS)? The procedure was developed by an Italian physician, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, and hundreds of desperate MS patients flocked to try it, despite a great deal of controversy about its efficacy and a pretty hefty price tag. They protested on Parliament Hill, indignant that the Canadian nd provincial governments would not fund this new miraculous cure. Some claimed it had cures them completely; some saw absolutely no improvement; a few unfortunate souls died from post-surgical complications.
Well, a new study out of UBC has finally and definitively debunked the procedure as the pseudoscience that many people took it for all along. Dr. Anthony Traboulsee of the University of British Columbia headed up a carefully-controlled "gold standard" study of 104 MS patients over the period of a year. Half actually received the vein-widening treatment, while the others just thought they had. The study concluded, like several smaller studies before it, that the so-called liberation therapy treatment has no apparent effect on the well-being of patients.
The moral of the story? Listen to what 90% of the medical profession is saying - they're probably right.
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