Montel Williams lobbies State of New York to legalize medical marijuana

June 29, 2010

BY CELESTE KATZ

Montel Williams, the former talk show host who now suffers from multiple sclerosis, is making the rounds here at the State Capitol today in hopes of encouraging the legalization of medical marijuana in New York.

Williams, who uses marijuana to ease the effects of his condition, noted 14 states and the District of Columbia have passed MM laws, and many other state legislatures are now considering it.

It's questionable whether the New York measure will make it through, and officials including Mayor Bloomberg have issued strenuous objections to its passage.

I had a chance to chat briefly with Williams, who says he's not giving up hope.

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Frustration over CCSVI bubbles into mainstream press (story and Patient video found here)

June 30, 11:05 AMMultiple Sclerosis ExaminerMike Szymanski

It's not a secret to people with Multiple Sclerosis that there's a great frustration about people who want to get the CCSVI treatment.

There are Facebook pages devoted to it, there have been angry protests, and there has been general anxiety among patients with the illness who think they can benefit from this new simple procedure by Italian vascular surgeon Dr. Paolo Zamboni. The story bubbled up to the boiling point and onto the pages of The New York Times in an amazing in-depth story about the procedure and the patient frustration.

In The New York Times article, it explains in great detail the intense demand and patient frenzy for the chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) treatment.

CLICK HERE to continue reading AND to watch a video of an MS patient's video on CCSVI treatment

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“Liberation Treatment” for MS, Study to Launch in Buffalo, NY

As reported in today's issue of the MSFYi e-newsletter:

Study of “Liberation Treatment” to Launch in Buffalo

The University of Buffalo has announced that researchers there, led by the department of neurosurgery, have embarked on a landmark prospective randomized double-blinded study to test the safety and efficacy of interventional endovascular therapy—dubbed “liberation treatment”—on MS symptoms and progression. Ever since Paolo Zamboni, M.D., of the University of Ferrara, Italy, proposed more than a year ago that a blockage of major venous outflow from the brain and spinal cord in people with MS (a condition known as CCSVI) may be associated with the disease, the MS community has been anxious for further studies to distinguish the role of CCSVI in MS. 

 

PREMiSe (Prospective Randomized Endovascular therapy in Multiple Sclerosis) is a study to determine if endovascular intervention via balloon angioplasty to correct the blockages improves MS symptoms or progression. PREMiSe is believed to be the first prospective randomized double-blinded study of balloon angioplasty for MS being performed in the US that has been approved by the University at Buffalo Institutional Review Board (IRB).   Significant safeguards are reportedly in place to ensure careful determination of risks and benefits.

 

In the first phase of the study,10 MS patients from the United States and Canada exhibiting venous insufficiency will undergo minimally invasive venous angioplasties to determine if the procedure can be performed safely. The procedures, scheduled for June 29th and 30th will be performed at Kaleida Health’s Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y.

 

The second phase of the study will randomize 20 MS patients to undergo either venous angioplasty or a “sham angioplasty” (a catheter will be inserted but there will be no inflation of the balloon). The treatment will be blinded in such a way that neither the person undergoing the procedure nor the clinicians evaluating the person will be aware which procedure was performed.

 

If results suggest an appropriate safety profile and preliminary effectiveness, then researchers will approach the IRB for an extension of the protocol to study a larger number of people with MS to convincingly prove or disprove a causal relationship between CCSVI and MS.

 

With CCSVI, it is hypothesized that the narrowing in the large veins in the neck and chest might cause improper drainage of blood from the brain, resulting in eventual injury to brain tissue. It is thought that angioplasty—a treatment commonly used by cardiologists and other endovascular surgeons to treat atherosclerosis—may remedy the blockages. Dr. Zamboni has further conducted preliminary studies suggesting the efficacy of venous angioplasty (“liberation procedure”) in the amelioration of MS symptoms. 

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German pharmaceuticals and chemicals company Merck KGaA is banking on an experimental multiple sclerosis (MS) pill to lift operating margins

(Reuters) - German pharmaceuticals and chemicals company Merck KGaA is banking on an experimental multiple sclerosis (MS) pill to lift operating margins at its embattled drugs unit, it said on Wednesday.

HEALTH

Earnings before interest, tax and special items at its Merck Serono prescription drugs unit could rise to 25 percent of sales in the long term, up from 22.4 percent in the first quarter, analysts at Exane BNP Paribas quoted the unit's head, Elmar Schnee, as saying in remarks confirmed by a Merck spokesman.

Merck resubmitted the U.S. application for its MS pill cladribine on June 8, trying to catch up with Novartis AG in the race to bring to market the first oral treatment against the debilitating disease.

If key pipeline drugs such as cladribine get rejected by regulators the margin could be 20 percent in the long term, Schnee said.

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FINALLY -- USA Mainstream media picks up on OUTCRY for as yet unproven MS Treatment for CCSVI

Information found below was found in ms.about.com. written by Julie Stachowiak, Ph.D.,

The New York Times has gotten "in the game" (in our game, at least) and posted a full-length article on CCSVI: From M.S. Patients, Outcry for Unproved Treatment

I had run across this myself last night while winding down and scanning the New York Times online - by this morning, no fewer than 20 people had sent me a link to this article. As a person living with multiple sclerosis who also tries to bring news to others with MS, I find the writing style kind of fascinating. For instance, I go out of my way to never refer to a person with MS as a "patient," unless the article is about our actual role as patients in a relationship with a physician. The rest of the time, we are people. Just a nuance, but an important one to me.

I am intrigued with how easily the author, Denise Grady, mentions facts and anecdotes about CCSVI and the "liberation procedure" - she states things once with minimal detail, but gets her point across. I am always backtracking and try to avoid saying things in general terms, because I figure that if I want to know, surely many of you will, too. This statement would make me nervous, for instance: "Another doctor, Marian Simka, who has been performing the procedure in Pszczyna, Poland, has reported that it has made symptoms worse in some patients." What does that mean? I'm going to look it up. I'll get back to you.

Anyway, if you haven't yet read the article, take a look. Remember, this article is not written for those of us closer to the matter, it's written to explain what is going on to the rest of the world - for me, it is an odd experience to read about the whole CCSVI thing this way, from kind of an outsider's perspective.

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Cancer Drug Shows Promise for Treating a Wide Range of Inflammatory Diseases

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2010) — Those looking for a new treatment for a range of inflammatory diseases like arthritis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and lupus may need to look no further than a drug already available for treating cancer.


In a research report published in the July 2010 print issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, Japanese scientists use mice to show that bortezomib, currently used to treat cancers that affect white blood cells, induces cell death only in harmful (active and proliferating) T cells, leaving the rest unharmed. If the results prove true in humans, it offers hope that this drugs or others similar to it might be used to treat inflammatory diseases without the side effects of current drugs that affect all T cells equally.

"Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are suffering from autoimmune and inflammatory disease," said Koichi Yanaba, M.D., Ph.D., a scientist from the Department of Dermatology at Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences who was involved in the research. "We believe that this new-type remedy for autoimmune and inflammatory disease could successfully treat them in the near future."

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UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM, evidently is not for "everybody"

Send  this one on every time you receive it, it seems to take some people  longer to "wake up than others!"  

 

 FINALLY SOMEONE ASKED HIM THE  QUESTION! ON "ABC-TV"  - by  Charlie Gibson.   

 He loves  Obama. DURING THE "NETWORK  SPECIAL ON HEALTH CARE".... OBAMA WAS ASKED:
  

 

 "MR PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND  YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM AND  JOIN THE NEW 'UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM' THAT THE REST OF US  WILL BE ON ????"   

  THERE WAS A STONEY  SILENCE AS OBAMA IGNORED THE QUESTION AND CHOSE NOT TO ANSWER  IT !!! IN ADDITION, A NUMBER OF  SENATORS WERE ASKED THE SAME QUESTION AND THEIR RESPONSE  WAS."WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT." AND THEY DID. IT  WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY ON THE NEWS THAT THE "KENNEDY HEALTH CARE  BILL" WAS WRITTEN INTO THE NEW HEALTH CAREREFORM INITIATIVE  ENSURING THAT THAT CONGRESS WILL BE  100% EXEMPT !

SO, THIS GREAT NEW  HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND ME BUT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH  FOR OBAMA, HIS FAMILY OR CONGRESS!!!

WE (THE AMERICAN  PUBLIC/PEOPLE) NEED TO STOP THIS PROPOSED DEBACLE ASAP !!!!   THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG !!!!!

PERSONALLY, I CAN ONLY  ACCEPT A UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL THAT EXTENDS TO EVERYONE...  NOT JUST US LOWLY CITIZENS.... WHILE THE WASHINGTON "ELITE"  KEEP RIGHT ON WITH THEIR GOLD-PLATED HEALTH CARE  COVERAGES.

If you don't pass this  around, may you enjoy his Plan

!

  WHAT???   The Republic has a  CONSTITUTION???

 

 Amendment  28

Congress shall make no law that applies to the  citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to  the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law  that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not  apply equally to the citizens of the  United States  .

 

Imagine  what would happen if everybody passed this  around

FIND A WAY to SHARE this information with others you know.

Comments welcomed !!!

 ................

Meat, Sausage and other foods can heighten risks of Multiple Sclerosis

June 27, 2010 - BY Debbie Nicholson

Opinion from examination of information from seven EU countries introduced today by German epidemiologist Dr. Klaus Lauer, at the 20th Meeting of the European Neurological Society (ENS) in Berlin, Germany, stated that the facts presented as of currently are not affirmed informal link, but is an expressive implication that a link possibly does exist and needs to be completely researched.

Research data had implied that particular industrial manufacture foods such as chocolate, jam, margarine and sausage, corresponds statistics with heightened chances of multiple sclerosis. 

During the “ecological study”, the epidemiological examination of information gathered of major regions or population groups, information on industrial food manufacturing in seven countries were analyzed for likely MS relationships with reversed results.

A major heightened occurrence was found associated with MS and the dispersion of raw vegetable oils, fats, butter, cheese, condensed milk, canned vegetables and more. 

Continue reading from All Voices.com

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