Article In the Sunday Times

Everyday living
1

hello all

i just wanted to let you all know there is an article in the Sunday times today about stem cell treatment and how it’s changed the lives of some people with MS. There was one patient who was paralysed from the neck down and was on a ventilator and they are now up and walking with crutches. Amazing. Interesting article for anyone who might be interested.

Lisa x

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Thanks Lisa

Today’s Telegraph has a piece on-line…

Ben

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Thanks for the ‘heads up’.Very interesting,but will NICE ‘like’ it if the trials have a definite positive outcome?If the results are positive the cost will be the issue despite any fancy footwork ‘by not so NICE’.

Good luck to those who are feeling the benefits.

Wb

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Is the treatment they are receiving HSCT? Article seems vague on what it is.

5

Yes it is HSCT, which is probably more of a chemotherapy treatment.

1 Like
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HI - think that this is a fantastic article on the progress being made with MS. I feel such joy for the people mentioned that it has helped. Wheelchair bound to walking - amazing.

Yes - just early results and probably not properly researched.

Min xx

7

Here’s part of the article written by a doctor (not a journalist) from the Barts blogspot, with the address given in the post just before this one.

#MSresearch #MS blog #stem cells miracle cure more like poor reporting

‘Miracle’ stem cell therapy reverses multiple sclerosis
The treatment, is the first to reverse the symptoms of MS, which has no cure, and affects around 100,000 people in Britain.A pioneering new stem cell treatment is allowing multiple sclerosis sufferers to walk, run and even dance again, in results branded ‘miraculous’ by doctors.

Patients who have been wheelchair-bound for 10 years have regained the use of their legs in the ground breaking therapy, while others who were blind can now see again.

The treatment, is the first to reverse the symptoms of MS, which has no cure, and affects around 100,000 people in Britain.

It is not 1st April but 1st March so what should we make of this.

Is it time to “hang up our boots” because everything is sorted or should we keep them on to give the journalist a really good kicking for shoddy reporting. I have my Bovver boots ready to rumble I think.

My simple advice is, if you are reading anything in the newspaper about MS, be very sceptical and cautious…It is invariably wrong or half a story at best.

This is about the use of bone marrow stem cells to to replace the immune system and is the most extreme form of “induction therapy” aimed at rebooting the immune system. This study has been reported by us and it is clear that the majority of people are not leaping out of their wheel chairs. This is just the type of poor reporting that the media specialise in …media hype

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Bet this’ll be in the Daily Mail health pages tomorrow (regular health section). I do look at this (online usually) as there are some interesting things in it, but you have to generally take them with a large pinch of salt. I believe that GPs hate patients coming in with ‘Doctor, I read this in the Daily Mail’ stuff! However, some years ago my husband had a procedure done following a piece I’d read in the Daily Mail about a newer kind of operation for something. When he went to the GP about it, the GP hadn’t heard of it. So worth reading.

Louise

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Whichever way you cut it, this must be considered good news for the newly diagnosed.