A Calgary woman is the second Canadian to die after having an experimental vein treatment for multiple sclerosis. Within hours of having her neck veins opened at a Newport Beach, Calif. clinic on April 13, Maralyn Clarke, 56, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage.

“This procedure was supposed to turn her life around,” her husband, Frank Lamb, said in an interview Friday.

Lamb said his wife decided to undergo the controversial “liberation” treatment at Synergy Health Concepts Inc. after attending a seminar earlier this year organized by doctors from the facility. “The only way I could have stopped her from getting this treatment would have been to tie her up.”

The so-called “liberation” procedure involves opening blocked veins. Zamboni’s theory is that stenosis, a narrowing or blockage of veins in the neck that drain blood from the brain, results in a medical condition known as CCSVI, or chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, which may cause MS symptoms. Removing the blockage -using a procedure similar to balloon angioplasty -is said to improve blood flow, which in turn improved balance and walking, while reducing dizziness, fatigue, muscle spasms and incontinence.

While the procedure cost $12,000, he said his wife was hoping it would help alleviate the MS symptoms she had suffered for two decades.

Within hours of leaving the clinic, she began experiencing an extreme headache, nausea and vomiting and was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

Lamb said she was taken off life support on April 18 after doctors found she had suffered irreversible brain damage.

“No one ever mentioned this was a risk,” Lamb said. “I wonder if things would have turned out better if she’d been able to receive the [liberation therapy] in a proper hospital.”

Ottawa announced on June 29 that it would fund clinical trials of liberation therapy for multiple sclerosis patients. Last year, an Ontario man died after undergoing the treatment in Costa Rica.

By Matt McClure, Postmedia News July 9, 2011
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