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TORONTO — Most doctors who care for patients with ALS support the availability of assisted death for those with moderate to severe disease, but few are willing to offer the lethal procedure themselves, a survey of specialists across Canada suggests.

As well, the survey found the majority of health providers at 15 ALS clinics who responded feel unprepared for the upcoming legalization of physician-assisted death and believe guidelines and training are needed prior to its implementation.

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“ALS has sort of been at the forefront of the physician-assisted death debate because it’s such an awful disease,” said Dr. Lorne Zinman, senior author of the study and head of the ALS Clinic at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the largest in Canada.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive and incurable motor neuron disease that leads to paralysis, the inability to swallow, respiratory failure and finally death, usually in three to five years from the onset of symptoms.