A new treatment for MS

[UncleHoney]

This sounds like a possible resolution for many who suffer from MS.

Pension Pulse: The Liberation Treatment?

[W2R]

It is always a good idea (in my opinion) to maintain a very skeptical outlook when reading about treatments for MS. Due to the nature of the disease, patients have remissions and exacerbations. If a patient is treated and then has a remission, that may or may not have anything to do with the treatment. Many MS patients having symptoms are likely to have gone into remission a year or two later with or without a given treatment.

Compounding the problem (and this is JUST MY opinion, only), most clinical trials of MS treatments do not involve enough patients to produce statistically meaningful results, given the tragically capricious nature of the condition. This is not a conventional objection to these clinical trials, but is mine alone.

Also it seems that a lot more people are being diagnosed with MS than was true prior to the availability of MRI's. This has provided a market for expensive treatments for the disease. I have had a personal knowledge of MS since 1972 so I'm sorry if I sound like I am trying to be a know-it-all but I have some very strong yet unconventional opinions about it based on my own experiences and study. During the past 37 years I have read dozens and dozens of articles like this one, presenting ideas that give some hope. Sadly, most of these ideas seem to fizzle.

[FinanceGeek]

+many on W2R's input. Many to most MS therapies do not survive the scrutiny of well designed clinical trials.

I would add that the measurements of statistical significance of several of the the approved therapies aren't very strong either.

A quote taken right from the article:

Quote:

We can't give the illusion to patients that this is a guaranteed treatment and it is easy. This is not right. And we have never done this," says Hilarescere President Fabio Roversi-Monaco. "We don't say this is a cure for M.S. We only say that research is advancing, and there is encouraging data but we are waiting for more conclusions

I personally suspect that R&D funding into hard to treat syndromes like MS will suffer greatly in the next few years to the extent that the potential profit from marketing treatments comes under increasing attack from so-called health care reform efforts. Its quite reasonable to provide everyone with basic care at a reasonable cost, its sad that this appears to go hand in hand with eviscerating our ability to tackle more complex maladies.

A reputable website to read about the status of emerging treatments for MS is mspipeline

[Kroeran]

yes, of course.

In any situation there are type I and type II errors, over optimism, and over pessimism, and sadly, the recent history of MS has been many dissappointments.

I just had lunch with a collegue who's brother has early MS. I had to convince him that the cost benefit of getting an MRI for narrowing is a no-brainer. Even if this has a 1% chance of being true, it must be done by all MS patients immediately.

news/documentary that ran in Canada last week....

CTV News | The Liberation Treatment: A whole new approach to MS

this has a number of markers suggesting that it may be the breakthrough...lots of parallels to the ulcer pardyme shift