Fox News fair and balanced, new promise in treating MS

Vonna · Post by **Vonna** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:01 pm

Fox News fair and balanced, new promise in treating MS

This just came out less that thirty minutes ago. Jan. 21, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FoxNewsChan ... Mbabym5W0k

Fair and balanced?

shye · Post by **shye** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:20 pm

sounds like just what my country is doing--
going to war to create peace

and hasn't the medical profession progressed WAY beyond (BUT UNFORTUNATELY NOT FAR ENOUGH BEYOND) his explanation of what MS is???

markus77 · Post by **markus77** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:32 pm

what can i say but OMG. expert reporting at its best i guess. just imagine if they actually researched what was really happening in the world of MS. this guy sounds like a salesman from one of the big phama's.

Ruthless67 · Post by **Ruthless67** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:45 pm

Vonna,

Where's my window I need to shout out?

"I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO BE A GUINEA PIG ANY MORE!^% #(*&#$ %^ *&" (*&#$%^ ^%$#( #@^^&& %$## !!^$%#

I can’t believe what I just saw with my own eyes!! Yet another immune suppressing drug that kills our T-cells and leaves us open to any other little or large bug out there!!!!!

Damn, they’ve already let enough of us painfully waste away with our disease or killed us directly or indirectly with the side effects of their drugs!! Ie; Imuran used to my treat Mother-in-law’s MS gave her leukemia which killed her. My sister’s drug to treat her Rheumatoid Arthritis suppressed her immune system and she boiled to death in her own blood in the ICU bed at the hospital!! This has to stop!!!!!

Rant over for now, I need to find something constructive to do. Then I need to write Fox News after I’ve had a cooling off period.

Lora

Ps: Even though it made me upset, Vonna, thanks for sharing the info.

shye · Post by **shye** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:46 pm

Markus77
That guy was NOT a reporter--he is a Dr Steven Garner from Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn NYC!!!!

CureIous · Post by **CureIous** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:08 pm

Prior to this fluff piece, this news had come out in the past few days on BBC, it's not a "Fox thing", every major network is going to grab and run with this.
While we all knew that pills were coming out, my thought is this could be a reason why CCSVI has been drop kicked to the back, so as not to interfere with the debut of a "fascinating new pill" for us to pop.

People can talk all they want that that is just conspiracy nonsense, but fact remains how quickly this story airs and CCSVI gets zero airplay, even AFTER they shoot the story.

I knew about laquinimod years ago , these other drugs are nothing new, and it's disgusting how excited the media is to report this and not CCSVI.

Mark
This is the real link for the video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FoxNewsChan ... Mbabym5W0k

Sharon · Post by **Sharon** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:17 pm

This is just amazing - research at its best! Take one pill to stop the T-cells from killing the brain -- take another pill to stop the effect of the first pill -- how novel is that? Sure hope our tax dollars at the NIH were not used to develop and research this drug.

Sharon

LR1234 · Post by **LR1234** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:19 pm

All sounds so great just pop these pills and the attacks stop.
The statistics according to the ITN news I saw yesterday was it stops relapses by 55% and progression by 30% hardly the big cure we were all hoping for.

patientx · Post by **patientx** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:19 pm

Interesting contradiction:

CureIous wrote:People can talk all they want that that is just conspiracy nonsense, but fact remains how quickly this story airs

CureIous wrote:I knew about laquinimod years ago , these other drugs are nothing new

The fact is, like it or not, these drugs have gone through phase III trials and are nearing FDA approval. That is why they are being reported. CCSVI has been published by one man, and another study is ongoing.

ozarkcanoer · Post by **ozarkcanoer** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:20 pm

I am on Copaxone now and it doesn't help me at all but at least it doesn't hurt me (I think). Why would I want to take another drug that weakens my immune system even more and also doesn't help my symptoms ?? It's about the symptoms !!!!! I need help for my symptoms not another "miracle drug" that costs an arm and a leg and I still feel miserable. My hope lies with CCSVI. I live for the results at Buffalo !!!! And I am living for my upcoming appointment with my neuroradiologist and possible MRV

.

ozarkcanoer

CureIous · Post by **CureIous** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:30 pm

patientx wrote:Interesting contradiction:
CureIous wrote:People can talk all they want that that is just conspiracy nonsense, but fact remains how quickly this story airs

CureIous wrote:I knew about laquinimod years ago , these other drugs are nothing new
The fact is, like it or not, these drugs have gone through phase III trials and are nearing FDA approval. That is why they are being reported. CCSVI has been published by one man, and another study is ongoing.

Haha I knew u were gonna say that.

Glad the headline is "New oral pill for MS" and not, "New oral pill can KILL you but it's a pill nonetheless!". Or, "Better hope you don't have a latent herpes virus kicking around your system when you take this". You know, the whole truth not just the catchy "New pill for MS" garbage, it's NOT new, that's the point. It's old news, and it's efficacy isn't what one would call "stellar" either, so what value is a study? To prove it doesn't kill ALL MS patients?

They report on every medical thing imagineable studies or not, why is this story given so much more credence than CCSVI which is THE biggest story in MS right now?

I'm sorry if Merck doesn't like it or any of the other pharmies, they roll the dice they takes their chances..

I have some salient, overlooked quotes from this story:

It’s too soon to know if the pills will be approved by the government or widely adopted by physicians, they said.

Weakened immunity
But they also found both drugs significantly lowered immune defenses that allowed latent herpes viruses to rage in some patients — in one study, two people died of unchecked herpes infections.

The new studies reveal the trade-offs:

A two-year study gave 1,300 MS patients cladribine or dummy pills. Patients on the drug were only half as likely to suffer relapse as those on placebo, and were 30 percent less likely to have worsening disability. However, 20 percent to 30 percent of the cladribine patients developed low counts of infection-fighting white blood cells, compared to just 2 percent of the others. And 20 cladribine patients suffered herpes infections versus none in the dummy pill group.
A two-year study gave about 1,000 patients fingolimod or dummy pills. Only 17 percent of fingolimod patients had worsening disabilities from MS after three months, compared to 24 percent in those on placebo. Herpes infections were about the same in the pill and placebo groups, but respiratory infections like bronchitis and pneumonia were nearly twice as common in the fingolimod patients.
A one-year study of 1,200 patients tested fingolimod against shots of Avonex, a form of interferon. Those taking the pills had less brain shrinkage — a measure of progression of the disease. About 20 percent of patients on the pill had relapses versus 30 percent on the dummy pills.
In that study, 9 percent of those on fingolimod had serious side effects, compared to 6 percent of those on Avonex. Two people on fingolimod died of herpes infections; six had eye swelling and eight had skin cancers.

Gee, bad news about CCSVI travels the net faster than a mouse click, but "NEW MS PILL" has no negative connotations at all. Guess it will be one of those "read the insert" things

Mark

shye · Post by **shye** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:36 pm

CurIous says:

They report on every medical thing imagineable studies or not, why is this story given so much more credence than CCSVI which is THE biggest story in MS right now?

Big Pharma OWNS our government, our media...CCSVI is (not yet) big Pharma...

patientx · Post by **patientx** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 4:36 pm

Cureious wrote:They report on every medical thing imagineable studies or not, why is this story given so much more credence than CCSVI which is THE biggest story in MS right now?

Because these pills have solid data behind them. CCSVI has one treatment report, and the data from that are shaky at best.

By the way, as conspiracies go, this one is pretty poorly run. The news story didn't even mention the name of either drug.

markus77 · Post by **markus77** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 4:52 pm

i know he is a doctor shye. my comment was directed at fox news for putting this yahoo dr on the air.

Apuman · Post by **Apuman** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 4:55 pm

"So it actually gets at the root of the problem, stops the destruction."

So T-cells are the root of the problem? I thoguht that the root of the problem was whatever was making the T-cells attack the bodies tissue. Then again, this is no surprise coming from Fox.