I can see where you're coming from on this one Harry, but a lot of people seem to really do well on Tysabri.
And I have read that several have not done well on it. The unfortunate part is that Biogen will show prospective patients the good comments on the drug but not the "not so good" comments. I read on one forum today that a patient who started on Tysabri last month was not told about the dangers of the drug!!! Talk about professional irresponsibility by the doctor!
You or I might not feel that the crabs do anything useful and/or maybe we feel that Tysabri doesn't do anything useful, but it is and should be available as an option for intelligent people and it's not up to any of the rest of us to question the wisdom of someone who chooses to take it and it's not up to us to attempt to overstate the dangers in taking it until the facts are all in.
I won't disagree with you on that at all. It's up to the patient and his/her doctor to discuss the options and make an informed decision. The problem, however, like I pointed out above, is that the patient isn't always given all the information to make this "informed" decision.
I don't know for sure but it seems that, by a large degree, more Tysabri infusions have been done in the USA and Canada. With that in mind, what is responsible for the two confirmed PML cases being in the European union? Were both cases in the same area of Europe? Were they in the same country? Clinic?
Tysabri's use in Europe was delayed several months while the health care system over there decided on whether the cost vs benefit equation was worth it. I read that one patient was in Norway and the other in Sweden (I could be wrong on the second patient) You can bet that Elan is working very closely with the doctors involved to obtain as many facts as possible. And I'm sure they will use Biogen's marketing/sales people to try and counter any bad publicity about it.
Before jumping to ANY conclusions or laying ANY blame there are a lot of very important things which need to be answered, and the situation starts suspiciously because it seems to defy the odds.
Defy the odds?.....I don't think so. I have read that there are more suspected cases of PML out there involving Tysabri but I stress that this information comes from internet comments and not from substantiated facts. Only time will tell if this information is true or not. Don't forget, the discoverers of Tysabri said a couple of years ago that there were going to be many PML cases and associated problems with this drug as its use grew.
One thing is for sure.....the drug remains quite controversial and Biogen's competitors will ensure that this remains so!
Harry