This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Does anyone have any input on the science behind this?

http://www.esperanzapeptide.net/home.php

Some of the articles are from 2000, so I wonder why there has not been more info if the treatment really works.

I am a pessimist when it comes to near "miracle" cures for MS. If you decide to try this clinic out, let us know how things go for you.

My biggest concern is that this clinic is in the Bahamas, away from FDA or the American Medical Association scrutiny.

Good luck in your quest for answers with this cobra venom and the doctors that give it to people.

gwa

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Hi gwa & Lyon,

I accept the points you make - very sage advice. However, I was really enquiring as to if there was any knowledge out there to confirm or deny whether this peptide application by homeopathic spray has any scientific basis to it.

The website provides this item under the MS Society of Canada logo. As gwa suggests, some of this info is 5 years old, so what do we now know about the scientific development of the product?

"Possible Study of "Cobra" Drug

Time magazine reported in its January 16, 2001 issue that a drug derived from modified cobra venom might be tested at Canadian MS clinics as a treatment for MS in the near future.

Immunokine has been tried in 25 people with MS under non-placebo controlled conditions with initial encouraging results.BioTherapeuitics, Inc. (f/k/a Phylomed Corporation), the Florida company that makes the drug, has applied to Health Canada to test it at several Canadian MS clinics. Additional details will be provided when they become available.

The study of Immunokine was a Phase I trial. This is a short study in which both the people receiving the therapy and the study investigators know the participants are receiving active treatment. The primary outcome is to test for safety of the therapy.

The usual next step would be a Phase II trial in which participants are divided into groups. One group receives active treatment and one receives a placebo (non-active) treatment. Neither the participants nor the physicians who examine them know who is taking which treatment until the code is broken at the end of the study. This is called a double-blind, placebo controlled study. The investigators start to gather data on whether the therapy actually works while still measuring safety.

If results from the Phase II study are positive, the next stage is a Phase III trial. It is a double-blind, placebo controlled study that involves a large number of people, often at many research sites for a number of months. It collects data on safety, the effectiveness of the therapy and side effects. These data are necessary for any submission to Health Canada for evaluation of a therapy for potential approval."

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If Florida Bio Doc stops in maybe you can get some scientific info on the venom.

As for me, I would not be going to the Bahamas and wasting my money without more evidence the stuff works. If you google Immunokine not a lot of info appears.

gwa

From my understanding, science has yet to confirm any homeopathic treatment.

However, if my understanding of "homeopathic" treatment is correct & it truly is a homeopathic treatment, it should be pretty safe. I THINK the basis of homeopathic treatment is the use of an infitesimal small amount of the treatment chemical in purified water. For example, in australia DHEA is illegal to sell without a prescription, however it can be purchased in homeopathic treatments, as there is so little actual drug in the product.

I also find it questionable when they dont clearly mention anything about a failure rate.

I found the following link regarding concerns about using snake venom:

http://www.mndassociation.org/research/ ... venom.html

The point is that little is known of how it might work and whether it does work.

I also found that Biotherapeutics used to be called Phylomed (Florida) until they started involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001. I think that allows them to liquidate without having to pay much if anything to their stake holders while reorganizing as Biotherapeutics. I'm not familiar with bankruptcy rules.

Some of the questions I have are:
Why did they move to the Bahamas?
Where are their publications?
Why doesn’t their website list the doctors involved?

What I have seen is that cobra venom acts in many ways but the main way is to inhibit the acetyl choline receptor to shut down the nerve synapse signals. A victim's diaphragm muscles are the first things to go which causes a loss of breathing.

The inhibition is probably an irreversible chemical bond formation between the toxic proteins and the acetylcholine receptor, preventing the receptor from ever being used again. Once about 1/3 of the receptors in a synapse are inhibited, that neuron is no longer functional.

The peptide(s) (peptides are portions of proteins) the Biotherapeutics claims to use is probably a denatured peptide(s) from one of the venom proteins. The amino acid cysteine has a sulfur atom in it. Two cysteines can crosslink their sulfur atoms to form a permanent chemical bond called a cystine bond. (think I'm spelling that right.) So when two proteins (the venom protein and the receptor) form a cystine bond together, they are permanently attached and the receptor can no longer bind and release its normal substrate, which would be acetylcholine.

Apparently they do an ozone treatment to alter the cysteines in the peptide so that the sulfurs can no longer crosslink to each other. Thereby the venom peptide
will only bind temporarily but then come off. It has the effect of perhaps slowing the acetylcholine receptor functioning but not eliminating it. Kind of a modulation effect rather than an inhibition. The peptide would have the right shape/charge distribution for binding the receptor's binding site but the peptide can no longer form the permanent bond, and so it eventually releases from the receptor, allowing acetylcholine to bind.

This would be my guess at what is going on with the peptide therapy but I don't know if it would really work, and apparently there are no or few publications even discussing it, much less proving the effectiveness of snake venom as a treatment for MS, or other diseases.

Bottom line, I wouldn't bother with this Biotherapeutics. Too many unknowns.

Wesley

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Wesley,

Thanks for taking the time to explain your views on the cobra venom. There are so many treatments out there now that it is impossible for laymen to fully digest each of them.

There is a lot about snake venom that gives me the creeps.

gwa