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[Lyon]

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[HarryZ]

Bob,

Thanks for posting that article.

Here we are, some 50 years into MS research and are now discovering that the basic ideas from which most of the research has been done and drugs developed, may not be correct!! It's no wonder that there hasn't been any meaningful progress with this lousy disease!

Harry

[Lyon]

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[HarryZ]

Hi Bob,

Hi Harry.
I didn't mean to start a Sunday negatively but actually the situation is even worse.

I didn't for one second consider your message to be "negative". While some feel that questioning established knowledge and protocol on MS research is "negative", it is anything but that.

In addition to what you mentioned, what specifically ruffled my feathers was:

Until very recently we believed that nervous dysfunction in MS was completely depending on the accumulation of lesions in the white matter of the CNS.

that inflammation itself causes at least some of the temporary disability (probably a lot) which resolves when the exacerbation and inflammation recede involves only common logic, yet researchers commonly overlook that, or at least don't mention it in articles.

Bob

Of course the big four pharmas who produce today's approved MS medications conveniently stick-handle around that information.

Harry

[Lyon]

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[HarryZ]

Hi Bob,

Is there any doubt that you're from the great white? That is a hockey term isn't it?

Bob

I plead guilty to all counts for using that term It is definitely a hockey term used all the time in Canada.

Harry

[dignan]

I'll vouch for Harry, "stick-handle" is more common than mounties and maple-syrup.

[Lyon]

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[HarryZ]

Hi Bob,

so I figured "stick handle" must mean "avoid", and since Harry was talking about Pharmas, it must mean "weasel your way around".
Bob

Pretty close...."stick-handle" could be equated to "tap dancing around" in this instance...in other words, avoid the real issue and make things look good.

Harry

[TwistedHelix]

When I first read your post, Bob, I was thinking, " well of course, we all knew that already – why are these scientists bothering to write about what we are already aware of?" Then I realised: we in this community are not hidebound by dogma and preconceptions so we absorb new ideas more readily and quickly. Unfortunately the scientific establishment is a slow, lumbering juggernaut that's about as agile as a fully laden supertanker trying to do a three point turn.
You know what that makes us? – that makes us cutting edge!

By the way, I presume " Great White" is a reference to Canada… Trouble is, if the ice caps keep receding, " Great Muddy Brown" will have to be its new moniker,