Dr Hubbard's response to the 10-28-12 NY Times article "The Zamboni Effect. A controversial 'Cure' for MS"

“The Zamboni Effect. A Controversial ‘Cure’ for M.S”  tells a bitter-sweet tale of four MS patients, Devin, Jeff, Elena and Adam, their families’ efforts to bring new light and hope to a mean and miserable disease, and the demeaning response of neurologists. Devin is my son and I am a neurologist, trained at Yale, Stanford, and Einstein where I was chief-resident in 1982.  When he was diagnosed with MS I consulted my neurology colleagues, studied the research literature and concluded that the orthodox explanation – immune T cells were attacking normal myelin – was false, and that the $40,000/year drugs that disable T cells offered little hope.  My wife Arlene found Jeff’s wife Joan on her Facebook site where she had compiled a massive library of research on MS and in particular the research publications of Zamboni, a vascular surgeon at the University of Ferrara.  Zamboni’s wife Elena had been diagnosed a decade earlier and since then he had rediscovered and re-invigorated a different explanation - abnormal venous drainage from the brain and spinal cord causing inflammation and damage to the myelin-making cells around the small veins.   Joan reached out to a courageous vascular surgeon at Stanford who found obstructions in Jeff’s jugular veins and opened them with balloon catheters inserted though the femoral vein in the thigh.  Today we are good friends; we have a new medical society, the International Society of NeuroVascular Disease, and several charitable foundations including CCSVI Alliance, the Annette Funicello Research Fund and our own Hubbard Foundation.

The hostile and demeaning response from the neurologists is the underlying theme of the NYT story and its subtitle, “just experiencing the power of suggestion?”  Neurologists stopped the Stanford surgeon from continuing his research and have lined up for a law suit against him. A Cleveland Clinic neurologist says “it offers false hope.”  A Dutch neurologist is quoted saying my own review of 259 cases published this year in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology has zero scientific value; he apparently also told the reporter he believes MS complaints are mostly “psychological.”  The FDA announced last May that any researcher on venoplasty must apply for their approval (our Foundation has done so).  The story begins and ends with Adam whose brother Chris is a neurologist at Yale.  Chris is quoted as saying “It’s one of the saddest and most outrageous stories of scientific misconduct,” provocative language against authors of peer-reviewed scientific journals challenging the status quo.  I found some publications by Adam’s brother on cocaine dependence, but none on MS (his website states he specializes in Botox for headaches). When learning that a fellow MS patient was seeing his brother,  Adam says, “poor guy,” echoing the feeling of many patients who have stopped seeing  neurologists..

Here’s what we say to patients and their families: consult a vascular specialist to investigate your blood flow/perfusion; consult an integrative medicine specialist to investigate inflammation and toxins, but above all, don’t let the neurologists get you down!