In Ottawa two days ago it was the surprise of a collapse of a significant portion of a major downtown street. People were immediately evacuated from the city's premier shopping mall and buildings beside it, and emergency crews were called to shut off gas and water due to broken pipes within that collapsed area. Far beneath where the collapse occurred workers had to be evacuated from their labours in tunnelling for a new light rapid transit system.
And although it hasn't yet been officially confirmed that the construction that is taking place nearby was responsible for the sinkhole that suddenly appeared, it seems reasonable to assume that this was the cause, given the makeup of the underground on which the city and the entire area sits on; leda clay and sand. The combination making for a truly unstable base.
But good things happen too, so significant that something that has just been published in the medical journal The Lancet yesterday holds out the very real promise that sufferers of multiple sclerosis have been handed a true new lease on life. Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital engaged 24 patients with a new clinical trial that transplanted their own blood stem cells after wiping out the immune system that had failed them, and found resounding success.
Inflammatory brain lesions were found to be absent after treatment, and with that amazing recovery none of the patients participating require drugs any longer to control the life-disabling disease. Most critically, 70 percent of the participants realized a complete halt in the progression of the disease. The first clinical trial showed the "complete, long-term suppression of all inflammatory activity in people with MS", confidently stated Dr. Harry Atkins of University of Ottawa who pioneered the treatment with Dr. Mark S. Freedman.
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