This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Dr Bruno Gran, a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Clinical Neurology in the School of Clinical Sciences, working in collaboration with Professor Paul Moynagh from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, has discovered a synthetic chemical compound which inhibits the pro-inflammatory signals produced by the immune system in MS.

What makes this chemical unique is that at the same time, it stimulates the body to produce interferon-beta, an anti-inflammatory molecule, that is commonly given to patients as an injected drug to treat MS.... Read More - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseact ... ageid/3182

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Thanks for posting this - I saw a short clip about it on the news this morning but could find nothing!

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If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. - Al Einstein

Not wanting to sound pessimistic about this discovery but how many more immune system molecules, agents and compounds are they going to discover and give to MS patients when nobody has been able to prove that MS is an auto-immune disease? Kind of makes you wonder!

Harry

Until a cure is found that is how long.

Well, they have been "discovering" immune system ideas for over 70 years now and where has that got us? Certainly not an effective treatment and nowhere close to a cure? Heck, they haven't even found the cause of MS!

I feel very despondent today. My husband has had some sort of relapse which has made his walking even harder then it was and his nystagmus so bad that watching TV or using the computer has become an even bigger challenge.
Researchers have spent so long searching for what the hell MS is and they have still not got there yet. There is no real viable treatment for those in the PRMS/PPMS group either.
I am drawn to the threads that start of with 'new discovery made' but then i remember that it will be years before anything is done with these studies and if the person is 40 now,well then,forget it.

Daisy,

I understand how you feel since I went through the same process many times.

My wife had MS for 35 years when she passed away in 2007. She was 57. I started following MS research before I met her in 1974 as my uncle had the disease in the 60's. I can't count the number of articles I read or research seminars I attended over the years with the "new discovery" tag applied to them.

After several years of this I got to the point that I never got too excited about any "new discovery" that was announced. Most of the time it had to do with another new way of altering the immune system. Of course, these new discoveries never worked out in the long run. When the DMDs started to arrive in the early 90's and the CRAB drugs eventually got approved, there was more hype than ever before. The seminars turned to neuros pointing out on their charts how effective these new drugs were with the pharma reps standing in the background ready to cash in on their new immune system altering medications. The marketing and sales efforts put into these drugs were immense and the clinical trials "proved" they worked.

Well, they really didn't and discreetly the neuros admitted they were sold a bill of goods by big pharma. But they would never say this publicly because the drug companies were financing their MS clinics big time and you didn't dare bight the hand that fed you.

And then the monoclonal antibody drugs started to appear and the same old process started over again, this time with even bigger marketing and sales efforts. These drugs even affected the MS patients' immune system more in an attempt to "fix" this immune system disease. Yet they still haven't proven that MS is an immune system disease!! These drugs claimed more efficacy but along with that came nastier side effects up to and including death.

Some people say that I am quite pessimistic when it comes to today's current drugs and I can't disagree with that assessment. I lean towards more "realistic" as a description of myself.

So yes, I can empathize with you when you see your husband becoming sicker with this lousy disease and then read more announcements that a "new discovery" has been made. After 47 years of seeing this, I don't get excited any more!

Harry

Nice to see you are still around Harry. I always appreciate your point of view. Don't post much these days since I try to stick to my data entry but it's nice to take a break once in a while.

Harry,
It pains me to admit that you have written an absolutely brilliant, honest heartfelt reply regarding "new discoveries"... that is correct. My son has MS, and when we go to the doctor, we come out with no viable help for his disease and grave discouragement.

Autoimmune is not cutting it or by now someone would have found the cause or some med would control MS. Nada, nothing. Go in sick, come out sick and sick at heart.

Any remissions seem to be unexplained, and few treatments like antibiotics, venoplasty or Swank or more never work for everyone. Enough said.

Coach,

Thank you for the kind comment. It is always nice to hear that someone appreciates what you write.



Moom,

I understand how you feel since I went through much the same with my wife. A lot of the things that I say on this board come from the feelings and thoughts of Marg when she was alive. She experienced 35 years of frustration in dealing with MS and because she herself was involved in critical care nursing all of her working years, she was told many comments by the MS docs that they would normally not say to their patients.

Add to this the deliberate sabotage against alternative possible MS therapies that I experienced over the years, I have a real disrespect for some of the members of the MS world of medicine. You may have read comments by others here who preach the importance of scientific medicine and clinical trials. While I absolutely agree with this requirement, it's the dark side of this area that can be quite disgusting in how they use the information they acquire. Preaching theory is one thing....practicing it properly can be challenging.

There are some readers who sometimes disagree with my opinions and that is their right. But I know what I have experienced over the years and I will continue to voice my thoughts.

Keep up the fight and try to stay as positive as you can.

Harry

What a break through! A discovery that makes the body produce more of a useless (in terms of MS) molecule!

Have they been thinking about that for a long time or it was a "Eureka" moment?

Wow! I am shocked!

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Shortest joke: "We may not be able to cure MS but we can manage its symptoms."

Harry, Not being part of the inner "clique" of TIMS, I can only read the comments and make my own judgements. How can anyone challenge what you actually have lived with your wife? I know that I am the same way with my son's treatment.

I have become very bitter and jaded when I see the manipulation of statistics in studies, the political infighting and the supreme quest for profit. I believe there are some researchers and doctors who sincerely want the cure, but they are often overwhelmed by the power of the current mindset and where the money is.

We are going another route that I will not discuss here because we don't need criticism. MS is, for some, a life and death matter. As for optimism, I think I am losing it fast.

Yasoo Sou..kala les!

Would like to hear what you are planning. Please private message me if you want.

Harry

Thanks Harry,

I am feeling particularly bitter as were not even two years into our marriage. I can't take solace in religion and I think the science has missed a big step somewhere.
Despite all my negativity I still secretly hope that they do come up with something-crazy.

Some of the comments on here are amazing. I really don't understand how people hold the neuros and "big pharma" together in some sort of conspiracy to make money.

First off, neurologists (or any medical doctor for that matter) do not find cures for diseases. They simply apply the best treatment that is available at a given time.

As far as development of treatments for MS, this difficult to do when you have no idea what causes it. It is going to take a lot of trial and error, but you have to start somewhere. With each failure, there is knowledge that is gained which pushes forward the science. I guess "big pharma" could have not bothered developing treatments until a cure was found. But what about the people that these drugs have helped?

So here we are, complaining about how neurologists and big pharma have
taken advantage of PWMS and we shouldn't believe anything that has been discovered over the last decade of research.

For example, HSCT treatment is in phase III trials and is the only treatment that has a highly effective success rate (80%) of halting MS progression that is scientifically reproducible.

Or the amazing advances that have been discovered in regulatory T-cells that provide overwhelming evidence that MS (as well as all other autoimmune diseases) is driven by a defect in the protective role of the immune system against self reactive immune cells.

By the way, both of these discoveries could not have been accomplished without EAE and mouse studies.

So my big question is why has the HSCT treatment not had the same amount of hype as CSVI? It seems to hold a lot of promise yet is completely ignored by most people on this site. Maybe its because it proves that what they have been spewing all along is wrong and they don't want to admit it.