This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Okay, so I can believe that meat workers handling pig brains may catch some disease....

But as for pork causing MS. This is the most ridiculous pile of garbage I've ever heard.

What is on the top of the list for an American cook out??? Hot dogs! Now tell me with a straight face that this causes MS.

If this were true, then EVERYONE would have it.

Certain things can be harmful to some people while they're not to others. Personally I don't think it would be the pork thing for me, I've rarely eaten any pig products. And look at Israel, I guarantee there are people there with MS and they ingest absolutely no pork. There are so many potential causes of MS it's hard to discount any of them.

That rambling is just my two cents though.

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I don't know about pork having something to do with MS, but there are certainly Israelis who do eat pork. While many Jews do keep kosher, these days the majority do not. Here in the states, the vast majority of Jews do eat pork products. It is only the more conservative and Orthodox of the Jewish community that follow kosher dietary laws...

Bob,

Thanks for posting that. Interesting.

Wow, deja vu all over again! It brings back bad memories of graduate school in Milwaukee when we had to go to a Milwaukee slaughterhouse to get fetal calf thymus for purifying histones for our research. (Thymus is rich in leukocytes which have a high nucleus/cell volume ratio, which means we get more histones/DNA per cell for our histone/DNA research, ie. easier to purify.)

It winds up that, one theory I heard, was that the Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee in 1993 originated from that slaughterhouse from having cow stomach waste drain into a ravine that dumped into Lake Michigan. There was a water intake in the lake that was supposed to be 2 miles off shore but was only built 1/2 mile off shore. And so the theory was that effluent from the slaughterhouse may have been getting into the lake too near the water intake. 300,000 people got sick from drinking the water and many people with compromised immune systems (HIV, cancer-related immune-suppression, old people) died. I was sick too. Anyway, I think epidemiologists should be permanently stationed at slaughterhouses to keep track and analyze what is occurring at these early stage food-preparation sites that could impact our food supplies and our health.

But, Bob, you really got me to imagining.

We've got east coast Art 'Boston' Mellor working on MS, we've got west coast Montel 'LA' Williams working on MS. Why don't they get together and create a TV show on disease research? They could have a team of young, good-looking epidemiologists who rehash historic outbreaks of diseases (each episode: Faroe Islands and MS, or Florida Keys and MS, or Minneapolis and pig brain cooties, or Milwaukee and Cryptowhatchamacallit, etc.). The team could present the facts known about an outbreak and then present the hypotheses about the cause. There could then be links posted at the end of the show to WebMD, Accelerated Cure, Montel's website, or other sources for further information about the possible causes. What if you could get Hugh 'Dr. House' Laurie to host it, or at least put his interest into it? We've seen how successful and interesting the shows are on testing urban legends and off-beat theories. And recently I saw that there is a corny show about a team of UFO investigators who rehash old UFO sightings. Intriguing. The disease research show would need credibility though. It would be good to occasionally visit MS or at least autoimmune topics. I would think that the success of 'House' and the 'Myth-Busters' could be combined into a show about disease research with: individual patient's stories; re-enactments of historic outbreak hysteria stories; arrogant 'expert' opinions (note my contempt for mainstream thought); and precisely timed breaks for sponser advertisements to keep the tension building. That's where the Hollywood TV professionals are good at building the intensity in a show.

How about it Art? A bee in your bonnet so to speak. An idea for a TV series on diseases, perhaps with MS as a frequent topic? Perhaps a single show or a series on the development of the Accelerated Cure and where it intends to get us? Boston public television or Hollywood as the producers? Go for it. Isn't there some connection between MS and a relative of Mitt Romney? He might be running again in 2012. Wouldn't hurt if he was interested in bringing more attention to MS research.

I guess I'm doing too much thinking tonight.

Wesley

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Bob,

I see your point. A need to resolve the mystery. Solve the case in 30 minutes and then roll the credits.

I've been interested in autoimmune diseases for 30 years without the resolution but if I was paying for it as a cable TV subscription, I would want to at least have the Cartoon Network and ESPN I could flip the channel to on occasions for a change of pace. Autoimmune diseases are a long soap opera series.

Good night.

Wesley

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I suppose you are right. I was just trying to come up with an example. Actually of all the Jewish folk I've known only a few of them ate pork products. They may not eat ONLY kosher food but ham was one thing they stayed away from. That may be why I didn't look into it a little deeper.