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September 24, 2008
Submitted by hollie on Thu, 2008-09-25 06:45.
The Accelerated Cure Project web site now has new versions of our review documents on the topic of infectious agents in MS. There is a database in spreadsheet form containing information about the studies that have been performed on this topic, and there are is a document that analyzes the evidence for certain pathogens that have been suspected of being involved in MS. Our summer intern YingFei Li spent part of her time with us compiling this information -- thanks YingFei!
The most interesting new study (in my opinion, for what it's worth) in this area that came out in the past year is this one describing the presence of Epstein-Barr virus-infected B cells in and around the brain of people with MS. This type of infection was not found in brain tissue from people with other inflammatory neurological disease, so this may be a unique feature of MS and is definitely worth investigating further. I am also interested in reports of helminths protecting against MS or modifying the disease course in people with MS, and am curious to see how Dr. Fleming's trial of helminth eggs turns out.
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-09-25 06:44.
Please note the levels of funding expected for MS research in the future. Do you agree that we should be pushing congress, president, etc. to increase the amounts for research as much as possible?
art: I'll take this posting as another opportunity to present my case that we should not just assume that more funding equals better results. I wrote up my thoughts on this a while back, you can read them here.