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Vikingquest
CCSVI balls my a-- why don'y you ask someone like me who benefited from the treatment, over 40,000 have been treated two thirds have had a benefit.

But where are the medical trials?

As far as antibiotics goes, I was too ill to wait for a trial but by just taking the right antibiotics in the right order for a few years I am still alive and did not need a nursing home as my neurologist recommended to David.

Would you prefer that I had waited?

Sarah

Sarah,
I think you (and your hubby) were smart in finding a solution and going for it. I sent you a PM.
Staz

It was my husband, not me: I was too far gone mentally

I'm not suggesting you should have waited, I'm saying if this is so simple and great, then where are the trials right now?

Neurologists organise MS trials, that's why there aren't any.

Dr Burt isn't a neurologist... If there was enough evidence to suggest that a simple cocktail of antibiotics could cure MS, I would have thought that it would be being investigated by an MS specialist, or funded by the MSSOCIETY, or at least someone, they're trying helminths for goodness sake! jeez. To say that all neurologists are in the pocket of "big pharma" and not interested in actually finding a cure makes one look a bit loopy, like a conspiracy theorist.

Ah, I just found evidence of a clinical trial, it looks like it was instigated by Vanderbuilt back in 2002. Sadly it looks like it didn't get past phase 2...

I wIsh it were as easy as just a course of antibiotics, and I'm still wIlling to believe, but only once there is scientifically verifiable and reproducable data

Vikingquest wrote:Dr Burt isn't a neurologist... If there was enough evidence to suggest that a simple cocktail of antibiotics could cure MS, I would have thought that it would be being investigated by an MS specialist, or funded by the MSSOCIETY, or at least someone, they're trying helminths for goodness sake! jeez. To say that all neurologists are in the pocket of "big pharma" and not interested in actually finding a cure makes one look a bit loopy, like a conspiracy theorist.

I also do not understand why no proper clinical trial has been conducted so far with antibiotics. Antibiotics are cheap, so at least the phase 1-2 should have been done. Even CCSVI clinical trials have been commenced. We haven't even seen a preliminary study, which wouldn't cost too much.

The idea of infection causing MS has been around for a long time and even neurologists are not against it, they just wait for the proof as we all do.

Vikingquest wrote:If this is so good, where are the medical trials?

Who do you think pay for medical research?

There's a clinical trial of minocycline still ongoing as far as I remember. I read sometime ago of a trial of minocycline combined with copaxone which gave better results (that was by the way what made me decide to go for abx)

There's also evidence that abx help with other autoimmune conditions. For e.g. they have been used for a long time in RA.

This site has some helpful info.

http://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fusea ... d/360.html

As far as I'm concerned, a trial of abx is a no brainer considering the potential downside and in comparison to other treatment alternatives.

I also do not understand why no proper clinical trial has been conducted so far with antibiotics. Antibiotics are cheap, so at least the phase 1-2 should have been done. Even CCSVI clinical trials have been commenced. We haven't even seen a preliminary study, which wouldn't cost too much.

One poster stated that neurologists organize clinical trials but that isn't correct....pharmaceutical companies organize them and they use neurologists to conduct them...often giving them a lot of grant money to do so. The cost of trials is quite expensive and these companies don't conduct them out of the goodness of their hearts....there has to be a good possibility of a big $$$ return somewhere down the line.

The antibiotics mentioned in the article are all off patent which means any drug company can manufacture them at a very low cost. So why would any company spend the money to conduct clinical trials that would allow anyone to duplicate the drugs in question if the trials proved successful? The simple answer...they don't and they won't.

This scenario has been going on in MS research for decades and isn't likely to change any time soon. So you see it's not about the health of MS patients but about business and profits. That's just the way it is whether we like it or not.

Thank you, Harry: your reply has saved me a lot of time. I'm glad that I was too busy to turn my PC on earlier!

Incidentally, the Vanderbilt trial mentioned above did not include metronidazole, essential for the whole effect. See here: http://www.davidwheldon.co.uk/infection_journal.html
The reason was that whoever funded the trial wanted quick results and you don't get quick results with pulsing metronidazole. You just get better results and I am proof of that.

Sarah

The MsSociety funds research that pharma won't touch. So there is funding out there. It doesn't sound like some off patent antibiotics would cost too much to do a trial.... Just saying.

I doubt very much if the British MS Society would fund any trial of antibiotics and anyway, to do it properly would take far too long: best to just get on and take the stuff yourself.

Sarah