[Oceander]

I have MS...my husband was ranting about just this thing the other day.

Considering the number of years "research" has been done on MS, versus HIV, they sure have made a lot of progress on HIV, with very little progress on MS...they still aren't even sure of the cause, and the treatments are not what you'd call "effective" considering the risks and side effects one has to endure when you choose one.

With all due respect to you, because MS is not something I would wish on anyone, I think that is probably because MS is a much more "sophisticated" difficult illness and trying to tease out its causes and remedies orders of magnitude greater than for the virus that causes HIV.

I realize that is rather cold comfort, but that is more likely the reason why progress on HIV is better than on MS.

[dawn53]

I guess you have a point, but they never seem to make headway on diseases like MS, new meds, but new meds like Tysabri carry a known risk of PML (which can turn your brain to mush) and Gilenya (which can kill your immune system.) I stick with an interferon, which has about a 33 percent effectiveness rate of lowering relapses (not great considering the med costs 3 grand a month.)

I don’t know, I’ve found “comfort” in figuring lack of progress was because MS was an “orphan” disease, so to speak, not large numbers with the disease, therefore, the financial advantage to pharmaceuticals (considering they still make a lot of money on not curing the disease but on the treatments) would not warrant their investment in a cure.

On the other hand, on a moral basis (which I know is a joke when speaking of pharmaceuticals), there are a lot of diseases that are not brought about by someone’s “behavior”...MS being one of them, along with ALS, MD, Lupus, etc. and it’s hard not to resent the fact that HIV, in a short span, has gone from killer disease and almost certain death to “minor infection” (if this research is true.)