This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

A new theory is put forward that accounts not only for the previously established results, but also for the conflicting data that troubled the dominant paradigm, and while the new approach may not answer every remaining question, it does provide a direction for further research to follow.

What this paradigm shift serves to highlight is the role of forgotten research, the undercurrent of data supporting alternate etiological factors that were never incorporated into the dominant paradigm.

As the debate over MS paradigms rages on, it is instructive
to analyze the situation at play and understand what it may
mean for medicine in general. Looking back on a century or
more of modern medicine, it is likely that at least some
answers to the pressing medical questions of our time have
already been found, but have been neglected amidst the
inevitable turmoil of shifting paradigms, ever-accumulating
data, and the cognitive dissonance stemming from overzealous
adherence to a particular set of ideas. Luckily, advances
in technology and increasing access to more and more
sources of historical research data have provided us with a
rich reservoir of science to review and learn from. Whatever
the final outcome of the MS debate, it is a foregone conclusion
that this will not be the last time forgotten research has
its last laugh.