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Push for Australia to provide multiple sclerosis treatment

Patients who have used stem cell therapy to reverse the effects of multiple sclerosis are lobbying the Federal Government to provide the treatment in Australia.

A European trial has achieved a 95 per cent success rate, but Australian hospitals are reluctant to use it.

The treatment involves using haematopoietic stem cell therapy, where a patient’s stem cells are harvested from their blood, then an intense chemotherapy regime kills off the MS-ridden immune system, before the harvested stem cells are reinjected.

Neurologist Dr Colin Andrews was one of the first in Australia to use the treatmen, which is only suitable for patients with aggressive MS that existing medication cannot treat.

“We're rebooting the immune system and moving the cells we don’t want,” Dr Andrews said.

“Within a week to 10 days you've got a whole new immune system.”

Recent overseas studies have had a 95 percent success rate of stopping the disease.

The first eight patients in Australia had the treatment done at Canberra Hospital, but the hospital shut down the program half way through the ninth patient on the grounds it was unethical.

“What we’re doing here is harvesting the patient’s own cells, it’s not cells from elsewhere or any other source, so I can’t see there's an ethical issue,” Dr Andrews said.

It leaves only one doctor in Australia offering the treatment, yet there are about 4000 sufferers, leaving many heading overseas for help.

But it is at huge cost.

“I had no choice, I was on a ticking time bomb, I didn’t know what to expect next, my health and my child is far more important so I had to go,” Melinda Beattie said.

She spent $65,000 to go to India for the treatment, while Andrew Price flew to the US spending $130,000.

Both their treatments were successful.

They've now formed an organisation to lobby the Federal Government, but MS Australia is refusing to support it at the current time.

“The procedure itself is still in a very experimental stage very much only works with a very small number of people,” Deb Cerasa from MS Australia said.

But Dr Andrews has defended the treatment.

“It’s a procedure, it’s not an experiment, something that’s been around for 10 years, it’s widely practiced throughout the rest of the world we don’t regard it as experimental,” he said.