The online home of Will and Sara!
Posts tagged Interferon
Adventures in Neurologists Peddling Pharmaceuticals
May 13th
Tysabri : A picture is worth $6900!
My parents assured me that although they’ve gone to many MS events they had never been to a spectacle like this before.
Last night I trekked down to the basement of a branch of the AnMed hospital in Anderson, SC to attend an MS event my parents had alerted me to called Dialogue of Hope and Health. I can’t deny that I was hoping that the “hope” in the title of the event referred to the new oral medications soon to be available (at least in other countries) or perhaps stem cell developments. It turned out to be something between a sales pitch and damage control conducted by a local neurologist and a Tysabri sales rep.
In my opinion, it is a questionable ethical choice for a neurologist to invite his patients to a deceptively named seminar to be pitched to by a drug rep with only negative statements about alternatives and without providing a forum for the other MS DMD manufacturers to respond to allegations leveraged by the doctor and rep or to the questions posed by the attendees.
Tysabri is a relatively new drug, and I doubt my neurologist has more than a few patients on it. This neurologist does not specialize in MS but still drew what appeared to be at least 40 Medicare patients all on Tysabri out on a Wednesday night to wander around a hospital until they found the basement conference room. He said he organized the meeting (I wasn’t aware he had organized it until it had started) to eliminate some questions floating around. In other words, to get his Medicare patients to shut up about taking “medication holidays” and switching from Tysabri.
Oral drugs to treat multiple sclerosis could become available in 2011 after promising results in two trials.
Jan 21st
Interferon injections are more than unpleasant.
I am so glad I make a habit of reading BBC News daily as US news agencies frequently skim over important things in favor of the shocking or violent. Today they published a story about new oral multiple sclerosis treatments that are likely to be available in England in 2011. As someone whose liver does not particularly like Interferon and is afraid of the risk of death from Tysabri infusions this might be a godsend. Since interferons are not available as generics (they contain living organisms and are exempt from status that would let them ever become generic) this could open inexpensive and more successful treatment options to a host of people who have no option but to live with the effects of the disease untreated. The full article and link to it are pasted below, but here is the basic information you want:
- The oral drugs in question are Fingolimod and Cladribine
- The drugs are considerably more effective at reducing relapses than current available treatments
- The drugs may increase your chances of herpes and cancer
Multiple Sclerosis : Year One
Jan 16th
MRI images from the side make you look like a monster!
My first year of MS diagnosis wrapped up about a month ago and I’ve been reflecting on all the randomness and misinformation about the disease. As a lot of things in my life begin to come together (I’m growing up finally!) I find myself mourning the diagnosis more now than I did initially. Here comes the first downer post of 2010!
No one knows what causes MS and there is no cure. The idea of the cure is threefold: 1 – prevention of the disease, 2 – prevention of further progression of the disease, and 3 – reversal of disability caused by the disease. Theories are that those genetically prone to it may have it set off by exposure to a virus (probably the Epstein-Barr virus), that is is solely due to a vitamin D deficiency, and that a vascular disorder causes a backup of blood that leads to iron deposits in the brain. At any rate, the effect is that the immune system attacks the central nervous system, destroying myelin and the nerves that it protects. About 3/4 of all those diagnosed with MS are women.
