Multiple Sclerosis Drugs May Not Delay Disability

[Thomas]

July 17, 2012 -- Disease-modifying drugs have been game-changers for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. The drugs help prevent relapses, but now new research questions whether they slow progression of disability from the disease.

In a study of patients with relapsing-remitting MS, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, use of the most widely prescribed disease-modifying drugs, interferon beta, was not associated with a delay in disability progression.

Patients treated with interferon beta were no less likely than untreated patients to progress to the point where they required a cane to walk, which is a benchmark measure of disease progression.

"Treatment with beta interferon was not associated with a delay in progression to disability," says researcher Helen Tremlett, PhD, of the University of British Columbia. "It may be that in subgroups of patients these drugs do slow disease progression, but we were not able to show this."

http://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis ... disability

[Dahlia]

This article reveals the lunacy of 'most' doctors ways of thinking about this disease - the drugs don't seem to be working - but, we're just going to keep prescribing them anyway ........ I really hate this disease. When I was diagnosed 7.5yrs ago the neurologist handed me a pile of pamphlets on the drugs - he didn't talk to me about them, just gave them to me. I read about them on the net and decided to make diet adjustments instead. The thought of sticking myself with a needle to make myself feel worse just didn't make sense. The madman still talks to me about them when I go in to see him. When it comes to treating this disease why are these people so narrow minded in their approach. These drugs have been around for yrs. they don't work. Rotten doctors - please try 'thinking outside the square' - do us all a favour and STEP OUTSIDE THE BOXXXXXXXXX !

[cheerleader]

Love Dr. Helen Tremlett of UBC. She does not have any financial relationships with drug companies, and she's just trying to figure out MS progression by studying people with MS (not mice with EAE)
And she tells the truth.

Here's another recent paper of hers on natural MS progression in treatment naive patients.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548045

She's also the reason why I started looking at elevated liver enzymes and MS way back when....
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030771

cheer

[lyndacarol]

Love Dr. Helen Tremlett of UBC. She does not have any financial relationships with drug companies, and she's just trying to figure out MS progression by studying people with MS (not mice with EAE)
And she tells the truth.

Here's another recent paper of hers on natural MS progression in treatment naive patients.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548045

She's also the reason why I started looking at elevated liver enzymes and MS way back when....
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030771

cheer

Thank you, cheer; I think the article about elevated liver enzymes and MS that you posted is VERY important!

[HarryZ]

This article reveals the lunacy of 'most' doctors ways of thinking about this disease - the drugs don't seem to be working - but, we're just going to keep prescribing them anyway ........ I really hate this disease. When I was diagnosed 7.5yrs ago the neurologist handed me a pile of pamphlets on the drugs - he didn't talk to me about them, just gave them to me. I read about them on the net and decided to make diet adjustments instead. The thought of sticking myself with a needle to make myself feel worse just didn't make sense. The madman still talks to me about them when I go in to see him. When it comes to treating this disease why are these people so narrow minded in their approach. These drugs have been around for yrs. they don't work. Rotten doctors - please try 'thinking outside the square' - do us all a favour and STEP OUTSIDE THE BOXXXXXXXXX !

I have stated many times on this forum that my wife's neurologist back in 1996 told her that the ABC drugs were a waste of time and didn't do much of anything for MS patients. And this was from a doc who was involved with the trials and head of a MS Clinic!!

I can guarantee one thing from this article...Dr. Tremlett will receive a lot of criticism from the established world of MS medicine...how dare she say bad things about the multi billion dollar drugs that they keep on pumping out to treat this auto-immune disease??!!

While by no means proven as yet, the neurodegeneration first theory of MS seems to have gained more credence with this article. Of course only time will tell and the auto-immune wagons will again circle to defend their bu$ine$$.

Harry

[itsjustme]

Hey!

Look up there in the sky.

Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?

No, it's a story about m.s. and the picture used is a venoplasty of the juglars.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Mult ... story.html

[HarryZ]

However, the UBC study findings contradict another study published earlier this month by the Neurological Institute C. Mondino in Pavia, Italy, which concluded that disease-modifying therapies using drugs like beta interferons reduced the risk of RRMS progressing to secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS), a form of the disease which sees disability progress more steadily in patients.

I'll let you guess who funds trials at the Mondino Institute in Italy.

[ScaredofMS]

And the hits keep on coming. How do they getting with charging an arm and a leg for drugs that dont work?

[HarryZ]

And the hits keep on coming. How do they getting with charging an arm and a leg for drugs that dont work?

The simple answer....you have an excellent marketing department who convinces people that their drug works for MS...even if it means bending the truth now and then and getting a warning from the FDA for doing so.

If you look at the history of the CRAB drugs you will see how they got orphan status from the FDA (you get a lot of patent protection for a long time) and despite some very questionable trial data, they were able to get approval for MS use. When Tysabri first got approved, a number of neuros made comments on how lousy the CRAB drugs had been over the years with their minimal effectiveness. Then Tysabri got recalled and the neuros had to put their patients back on the CRABs again. A bit embarrassing!

I won't talk about the cost of these drugs...have constantly gone up over the years whereas most drugs drop in price after they have been out over 15 years. That's why the competition among the manufacturers has been intense....a few percentage point increase in market share can translate into millions and millions of additional revenue.

[erinc14]

i remember asking my first neuro about Betaseron and he said " it's not all that it's cracked up to be". this was the mid nineties . recently i heard him on the cbc radio totally against ccsvi and the media were driving it . wtf?

[sou]

I think they are two times more idiot than I initially thought. If you need to make billions of $$$$ by making useless drugs, why the hell do you make them injectable with nasty side effects? Some sugar would suffice!

[cheerleader]

I think they are two times more idiot than I initially thought. If you need to make billions of $$$$ by making useless drugs, why the hell do you make them injectable with nasty side effects? Some sugar would suffice!

Ha! Biogen is following your advice! That's why BG12 is the new blockbuster drug, sou
A synthetic version of Nrf2 activating plants like curcumin and silymarin. Only $40 a pill!
who is selling snake oil?
cheer

[drsclafani]

I think they are two times more idiot than I initially thought. If you need to make billions of $$$$ by making useless drugs, why the hell do you make them injectable with nasty side effects? Some sugar would suffice!

Has anyone, who has been treated with interferon Beta, had a response remotely comparable, short or long term, with that reported on the CCSVI forum

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/chronic-c ... 20395.html

but i am the one selling snake oil?

DrSclafani

[erinc14]

i remember asking my first neuro about Betaseron and he said " it's not all that it's cracked up to be". this was the mid nineties . recently i heard him on the cbc radio totally against ccsvi and the media were driving it . wtf?

i just wanted to add my first neuro's name was michael rasminsky .

[HarryZ]

i remember asking my first neuro about Betaseron and he said " it's not all that it's cracked up to be". this was the mid nineties . recently i heard him on the cbc radio totally against ccsvi and the media were driving it . wtf?

i just wanted to add my first neuro's name was michael rasminsky .

It seems the medical establishment has quickly gone from decrying the lack of clinical-trial-based scientific evidence to torpedoing the funding for the very trials needed to produce such evidence. Go figure.

Would it not be better for the docs in this camp to simply say that CCSVI doesn't have the science yet to prove the theory and wish them possible success?