Free Republic

...The genomes suggest that many characteristics — including a heightened risk for multiple sclerosis — were carried to Europe by people who migrated to the continent in three distinct waves starting around 45,000 years ago...The findings provide evidence that some of the regional variation in certain traits was caused by differences in migrants' dispersal patterns. That contradicts the idea that genetic differences arose mainly as people adapted to conditions in specific locations in Europe...Europe was settled by anatomically modern humans in three main waves: hunter-gatherers reached Europe from Asia around 45,000 years ago; farmers arrived from the Middle East 11,000...

Elena Ravalli was a seemingly healthy 37-year-old when she began to experience strange attacks of vertigo, numbness, temporary vision loss and crushing fatigue. They were classic signs of multiple sclerosis, a potentially debilitating neurological disease. It was 1995 and her husband, Paolo Zamboni, a professor of medicine at the University of Ferrara in Italy, set out to help. He was determined to solve the mystery of MS – an illness that strikes people in the prime of their lives but whose causes are unknown and whose effective treatments are few. What he learned in his medical detective work, scouring dusty...

Drug withdrawal a travesty for MS sufferersMichael Fumento (archive) April 28, 2005 | Print | SendThe yanking from the market of both Vioxx and Bextra, members of a new generation of pain relievers called COX-2 inhibitors, has critics ripping raw flesh off the Food and Drug Administration. Inevitably, both the agency and pharmaceutical companies are under intense pressure to over-scrutinize new drugs. But over-caution can also cause tremendous, as multiple sclerosis sufferers using a recently-pulled drug called Tysabri can attest.Tysabri belongs to an incredibly promising new class of biotech drugs called monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonals have repeatedly shown an ability to...

LONDON (Reuters) - People born in May in the northern hemisphere have a higher than average risk of developing multiple sclerosis, researchers said on Tuesday. An analysis of data from studies of more than 42,000 people in Canada, Britain, Denmark and Sweden showed that May babies have a 13 percent increased chance of suffering from the illness later in life, but that having a November birthday decreased the average odds by 19 percent. "If you are born in May, your risk is higher than any other month and if you are born in November your risk is lower than any...