The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Federal Minister of Health speaks with the Honourable Jerome Kennedy, Minister of Health and Community Services for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, during the annual conference of federal-provincial-territorial ministers of health in St. John's, NL, Tuesday, September 14, 2010.(MARKETWIRE PHOTO/Health Canada)

Thirteen days after she ignited a firestorm with her announcement that the federal government does “not have the evidence to proceed” with pan-Canadian clinical trials investigating CCSVI treatment for multiple sclerosis, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq lashed out at the press who she claims mangled her message. “We needed to clarify the misinformation that was laid out in the media,” she told the scrum assembled in St. John’s, NL, to cover this week’s meeting of federal, provincial and territorial health ministers.

The minister wanted to make clear that her government is “still open” and “never said no” to funding clinical trials on CCSVI, the controversial MS treatment pioneered by Paulo Zamboni to restore blood flow in the blocked neck and chest veins of patients via a routine balloon angioplasty. She also wanted it known the feds and provinces are in sync on the issue: “We are speaking with one voice on MS,” she said.

Aglukkaq’s statement offered a minor rewording of her Sept. 1 announcement that did say “no”—at least for now—to government funding for pan-Canadian clinical trials into CCSVI based on the recommendations of a study conducted by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in consultation with the MS Society of Canada. That report concluded scientific evidence didn’t support clinical trials but that the situation should be monitored via seven two-year studies into the MS-CCSVI link funded by the MS Society of Canada and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in the U.S. The minister also announced at the time that the government would set up a consult with the study’s researchers.

Exactly how the media distorted Aglukkaq’s message isn’t clear. But it’s understandable—politic even—that she take another run at CCSVI, a topic that has polarized the medical community over the past year and sent a fault line down the health ministers’ confab. In July, Saskatchewan’s government drew a proverbial line in the sand when it announced it would fund clinical trials into CCSVI treatment. On Monday, Jerome Kennedy, health minister to Newfoundland and Labrador, kicked off the meeting with news of an observational study tracking residents before and after they left the country for CCSVI treatment (but would not provide the treatment itself). Yesterday, Alberta’s Health and Wellness Minister Gene Zwozdesky announced that he wants to speed up an “examination” study underway in his province involving patients who’ve undergone CCSVI treatment.