MS ping!
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Posted on 03/27/2006 9:22:22 AM PST by cgk
By Mary Beckman
Special to The Times
March 27, 2006
STEPHANIE YELLIN-MEDNICK got through last year without the tingling in her hands that causes her to drop things or the weakness in her legs that knocks her off balance. Then the Food and Drug Administration pulled the drug that was helping her — Tysabri — off the market because of rare cases of brain infection in a few people taking it. "It was like a rug pulled out from underneath me," says the 49-year old Los Angeles Unified school nurse.
While the FDA and Tysabri's makers, Biogen Idec and Elan Corp., work out the details that will allow physicians to once again prescribe the much-hailed medicine, the outcry of people with multiple sclerosis highlights the need for better therapies to manage — or cure — the disease.
To devise more effective treatments, researchers are trying to better understand what goes wrong in the body of a person who has MS — and the strategy appears to be helping. "There's a whole pipeline of drugs coming down," says Dr. Elliot Frohman, a neurologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
The approaches include impairing a patient's immune system and trying to repair damaged nerves.
Researchers think MS, like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, is an autoimmune disease in which elements of the immune system attack the body. "Autoimmune diseases have been tough to crack," says medical scientist Dr. David Hafler of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It's asking me to login or register...
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Multiple Sclerosis ping list...
Kooky. I checked to be sure I wasn't logged in, but I probably have a cookie active.
This one seems to work:
User name/email: latimesspam@morons.org
password: bugmenot
FDA has postponed making a decision on re-releasing the drug for MS treatment until on or about June 28th.
The FDA pulled it off the market because of "rare cases of brain infection". Duhhh. If you are taking something that inhibits T-cells, it stands to reason that there is a risk of infection. If the patient is fully informed of the risks, then the patient should have the option of taking the med (unless it's a med that will cause death or serious injury to a large amount of people taking it).
I will be taking Prograf after my kidney transplant, and am fully aware that I am more prone to infection and cancer. However, I will still take it, because the benefits far outweigh the risks.
Actually the FDA didn't pull Tysabri, Biogen and Elan withdrew it when the PML came to light.
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