Â鶹ӰÊÓ

Canada's health minister says the federal government is still open to funding clinical trials on a controversial treatment for multiple sclerosis, despite perceptions to the contrary.

Leona Aglukkaq says the federal government "has never said no" to federall-funded clinical trials and that the media have left Canadians misinformed about Ottawa's intentions.

"What we've said all along is that there are studies underway -- seven research projects that we announced. We hope to... accelerate the development of a pan-Canadian clinical trial," Aglukkaq told reporters in St. John's, N.L. where she wrapped up meetings with her provincial and territorial counterparts.

Aglukkaq said Canada will move forward with countrywide trials as soon as she receives findings from seven research projects announced in May. She said preliminary results are expected within a few months.

Aglukkaq says the provinces are "on side" with Ottawa's plan, even though some are moving ahead with research projects of their own.

On Monday, Newfoundland and Labrador announced plans to fund a study to observe how MS patients fare after getting the liberation treatment, a procedure to open blocked neck veins in an effort to relieve some symptoms.

The treatment is based on a theory put forward by Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni that a condition called CCSVI causes narrowed neck veins, which leads to iron deposits in the brain.

The Newfoundland government will not pay for patients to have the treatment performed; only to record what happens to those who undergo the treatment on their own.

Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal says he's pleased that while provincial health ministers are interested in studying the liberation treatment, they won't yet fund the treatment.

Dr. Paul Hebert says the decision -- reached Monday at two days of meetings in St. John's -- shows the ministers are interested only in evidence-based medicine.

"From my perspective, the premiers did a very good thing," Hebert told CTV's Canada AM Tuesday.

"They listened to the patients, they listened to the people who have very a desperate need for cures and treatment and what they suggested… is they are willing to put together the plans for eventual clinical trials. They want to help support research on the way to doing the right studies."

The ministers said they would work together to explore ways to move toward clinical trials of the "liberation treatment," but only when and if the evidence is available.

The treatment is based on a theory put forward by Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni that a condition called CCSVI causes narrowed neck veins, which leads to iron deposits to build up and damage brain cells. Zamboni believe that unblocking the veins will help MS sufferers.

The health ministers have been grappling with whether to fund their own studies into the theory, now that the federal government announced earlier this month that it would hold off on funding clinical trials into the theory.

Ottawa's decision has been met with outrage by some MS patients, who say the only way to clear up the questions about the treatment is to fund high-quality trials.

But Hebert says he agrees with the decision by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research not to fund studies yet, because there isn't enough data to show that it is either worthy of further study or safe.

"I think at this point, it's very premature for patients to go out and get this," Hebert said. "The data on using it is very sparse. We know very little about whether these blockages have any relationship to the disease."