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By Matt McClure

CALGARY —A Calgary woman is the second Canadian to die after having an experimental vein treatment for multiple sclerosis.

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Within hours of having her neck veins opened at a California 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.

“I deeply regret she’s not here and in hindsight I wish she hadn’t had the procedure.”Lamb said his wife decided to undergo the controversial “liberation” treatment at Synergy Health Concepts Inc. after attending a Calgary seminar earlier this year organized by doctors from the Newport Beach, California facility.

“Something like this was never supposed to happen,” he said.

“The only way I could have stopped her from getting this treatment would have been to tie her up.”

The so-called “liberation” procedure, developed by Italian neurologist Paolo Zamboni, involves opening up 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.