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Didn't mean to sound flippant about all the other diseases, but there are enough problems with what we have and what others near and dear to us have that becoming proficient about more diseases is not at the top of my list.

At some point, we must enjoy life and carry forward. I have enough things to pack into a 24 hour day now, so unless I suddenly have an urge to go to medical school, I will probably not become a lot more observant about other diseases.

As far as MS costing too much money, I do not believe that financial conservatism is at the top of any of our Congress people's list of things to worry about now.

gwa

Just my quick 2-cent response to Dom's comment,

The public perception of science is woefully inadequate and I wouldn't expect everyone to have a detailed understanding about what MS is, but we are repeatedly told that MS is the most common cause of neurological disability in young people.

Science is a big mystery to most of the general public, but I don't think even the scientists have an understanding of MS. I'm not so sure that it is a neurological disease. Yes, some major symptoms seem to fall within the jurisdiction of neurology; does that mean chicken pox is a disease within dermatology?!!! The CAUSE needs to be investigated and found!! My eternal frustration!!!

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The point I was trying to make is how little the general public is aware that MS even exists, or even if they are, they perceive it as a distant, rare complaint which will never have relevance to themselves or anyone they know. If MS never impinged on your consciousness before you were diagnosed, why was that? I bet you'd heard a lot about strokes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and all the rest: you had an idea of what they were and how much impact they have on people's lives. And MS is " the most common cause… etc., etc.", (I agree that its root cause may not be neurological, but the point here is how common it is), so if saving money isn't going to sway government, there's only public pressure left, and that's not going to happen until the profile is higher.

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I think you're dead right, Bob, (I didn't think we were disagreeing), and I think it's a catch 22 situation: those other diseases are frequently in the news, often because of some new development or other. They are often preceded by a quick " dummy's guide" which gives a general outline such as, " strokes happen when blood vessels…", this keeps the profile high which equals pressure which equals research which equals more breakthroughs.
MS doesn't have those new developments as frequently because it is so perplexing, so I suppose that virtuous circle never gets started, and the public never gets to see our own dummy's guide – you know, the one that begins, " myelin is like the insulation around an electric cable…"