Don’t Jump to Conclusions Over a Breakthrough MS Vaccine Just Yet

I think it’s a great step in the right direction.. I don’t get overalls excited about these things anymore (I’ve had my diagnosis since I was 25, I’m now 42), these things take time. However my fingers and toes (on the days that I can) are crossed when I hear things like this.

People need to have hope. Its hard to understand why a vaccine thats less then a year old is given to 100s of millions if not billions of healthy people when a few million of chronically ill people with an incurable debilitating disease keep being told that a promising vaccine or treatment might not be safe or help. Many of those people would take the risk to try it, if not to help further a treatment for future MSers.
Why would it take longer to test this vaccine on people with MS vs the Covid vaccine on healthy individuals? I ask you, Ed.
It seems there is a huge potential financial hit to the MS drug vendors like Biogen, Genentech and others that control the space. Huge pressure to not develop something like this.

Even a glimmer of hope is better than no hope at all!

I agree with Tom.I know they can find a cure to stop MS but big money is in the way.Sad just Sad ?

Years ago I was a healthcare reporter for a daily newspaper. I got daily PR pitches. My standard was : no mice. If this new drug/vaccine/ therapy was not a study in humans and available soon, I would not use valuable new space on it.

I got diagnosed March last year and just some steroids put it back into remission but being a man of 38 this is something to keep an eye out on for to see if it comes into fruition. All we’ve got is either DMT’s of the very expensive Stem Cell route and both are not a cure. So if a vaccination to heal or prevent this debilitating disease I’ll cross every appendage and wait! This may happen this may not but it’s one step in the right direction.

I agree that mouse studies should be treated as only potentially indicative when concerning drugs. Research conducted in Cambridge showed that mice on a fasting or fasting mimicking diet had accelerated and more complete myelin repair. This is something we can all try... that is fasting. I choose not to eat before 5pm weekdays. Anything goes at the weekend, but not during the week. Side effect? Weight loss of 25Kg! Now stabilised and feeling good. Male, MS diagnosis aged 57.

Hola, mi diagnóstico fue a los 36 años. Solamente tenía hormigueos en pie derecho y alguna vez parestesia en una pierna. Así cinco años, que comienzo interferón indicado por especialista en em.
Cinco años de tratamiento y mi em se congeló, tenía una vida totalmente normal, no sabía lo que era padecer la enfermedad. Lamentablemente la neuróloga que veía después, no creía en el medicamento y me niega continuar el mismo. A los tres años muy lentamente comienza a progresar, enterarme en ese entonces, que no existía tratamiento para detenerla.
Cuando escuché en la televisión, que de alguna manera y gracias a la pandemia, se había descubierto una vacuna de ARNn que era muy prometedora para los que padecemos esta terrible enfermedad. No imaginan la alegría que sentí, ya que no pierdo las esperanzas de poder mejorar. Pena que lleve años los ensayos clínicos, y la vida se nos va.
Saludos para todos.

I wish we would focus on parasites infestation/infection in the central nervous system! Kill the infection and kill the parasites get our lives back! Not rocket science, but the they control the narrative.

I don't understand the modern fad of denigrating and dismissing anything short of a certainty as "false hope." Hope does not imply certainty. Hope is a feeling or desire for something that is not guaranteed. I fail to see how it's even possible for a feeling or desire to be "false." But, who am I to stand in the way of the latest catch phrase. If it will be make you happy we'll all promise to be hopeless from now on.

Eta boy Ed.. who wouldn’t agree?! So many wonders at our disposal every week, why not kill every hope, too much excitement..And that hope right then and there would harm us more than the MS anyway.

Hi Ed,

I had a question about the timeline for mrna vaccines. Considering the way mrna vaccines work, and especially in the case of something like this, which would be used only on people with MS, wouldn't that reduce the time to market by a few years? Since healthy people would not be given the vaccine, the initial human trials for healthy people could be eliminated?

The tone in this article is just so negative and condescending. This is such exciting news for the MS community. I think we all can agree about the stages of research and time frames associated with new drug developments. It will take years, and perhaps become a dead end. However, facts are facts. There is new hope on the horizon, and everyone should be excited and stay informed moving forward regardless of what some journalists tell you how or when you should feel or react to news of this kind. Practice Love, Hope, and Joy......................

I completely understand your feelings and hesitance about excitement from years of possible breakthroughs going nowhere – so much that every time the media jumps on something like this, you’re doubtful as a protection mechanism.
I think this time, if you look deeper - there is a huge difference between this and previous solutions. We have never been able to use CRISPR and mRNA to solve this problem, as they are doing now. The method to tell your immune system to attack a certain virus is the same mechanism to be able to tell your body to stop attacking something perceived as a threat. While this isn’t a “cure”- that would entail knowing what causes the immune system to provoke this response initially, and also be able to repair the damage , but this is the next best thing.
Calling this a "vaccine" is doing it a disservice, this is gene therapy, plain and simple. We are no longer spraying a body with dead or weakened viral genetic material and hoping it has a positive outcome, which is why so many previous clinical tests fail or prove fruitless in humans. Its also the reason why clinical testing of vaccines takes so much time traditionally. The same for companies testing exotic chemicals in the hopes of providing positive results with minimal side effects- another traditional method with long trial times and clinical study failure rates- this way is different.
Now, we are going after the root source because we know where to find that at least. We may not know THE cause of MS, but we know what it does, causing the immune system to attack myelin - and that’s enough to tell it stop. It will alter immune systems to stop attacking myelin, much like we tell it to attack a virus. Its targeted- and far more able to be rigorously tested quickly for efficacy in humans BECAUSE it is so targeted. I do agree, its going to be given a lot more time and clinical study than the COVID vaccine, since that was perceived a rapidly emerging threat to their entire population but start expecting trials to start taking place in months, not years. Why? Because we can now create something that does something very specific, and we know very quickly if it works. Doctors currently get reasonably get worried testing a new drug, because its like seeing a bad guy with a gun in a crowd of people, and all they had was an UZI to spray something with. Now they have a sniper rifle. It also gives them the confidence to know they can help just what’s causing the disease without worrying nearly as much about the side effects.
I think this is the huge underlying difference between what’s come before, and what’s next, which this is the first part of. Any auto-immune disease now HAS the ability to be fixed at the immune system level. We just need to start creating the chemical mRNA key and testing it. Diabetes, MS, most arthritis, celiac, Graves, Addisons. Their days are now numbered. I think this is reason to be excited for sure.
Also, for anyone worried these companies ARENT going to create these therapies to bolster the current over-priced highway robbery costs of their products? Here is why you do not have to worry - if they don’t create these, someone else will. That is the power of free market enterprise working for you, plain and simple. Either they can reap the financial benefit of creating these fixes, or someone else will. That’s the motivation to do so. And with CRISPR and mRNA, its going to happen a lot faster than it has in the past. They know their traditional and current cocktails of immunosuppressants are going to look downright medieval in 10 years, (the lets-poke-their-brain-to-get-them-to-stop-behaving-a-certain-way kind of medieval if you know what I mean) and are looking to shore up the future by being the ones who can offer them, not a competitor.

I say, see the bright light that's at the end of tunnel for this, everyone.

This conversation seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that the cause of ms is unknown. A disease cannot be cured without eradicating the cause. Over the past 25 years I have tried almost all of the DMTs for very brief periods of time to keep my then current neurologist happy. My neuros would tell me about the studies and how they showed that relapses were being avoided. My response always was well, how do we know that those same people would have relapsed during the same period of time if they had not been on the DMT? Oh right, we don't know.

The power of the DMTs lies with the patient. If the patient believes that the DMT is working, that is half the battle. The longer that we can stay hopeful, the better off we will be. We need to be a super version of the little engine that could... it isn't I think I can, it is I know I can.

Twenty-five years ago, I was told that if I did not start taking one of the DMTs, I would be in a wheel chair within ten years. Well... I didn't follow the advice and I am not in a wheel chair today. My mris didn't start really going downhill until 5 years ago when my mri showed three new plaques on my spine. It was then that I agreed to take the "cure" de jour. Am I cured? I doubt it. Have I relapsed since I finished my treatment. No. But, then again the new plaques showed up during a very stressful period in my life (working over 60 hours a week, one parent passed away two years prior and my other parent was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer; she lived for four months after the diagnosis), and during extreme stress, there was always a significant chance that I would experience an exacerbation.

While this advance may not cure ms, if it has minimal horrible side effects, that alone is a win. Again, I firmly believe that the power of the DMTs is in the patient's belief that the DMT is working.

I do not expect a cure in my lifetime because there is no incentive to find a cure. Heck, there still is not a cure for breast cancer even though there is an abundance of research money donated to finding a cure.

If you people want a cure why not advocate for your health. This is from research paid for with our money. We’ll be waiting til he’ll freezes over unless we demand the money be put to better use.

“Patients value upper limb function and are keen to be included in studies after the loss of walking ability—a recent survey showed 95% of patients disagree with the idea that wheelchair users should be excluded from MS studies.”

Hello Ed
At first, i would like to say that perhaps i became your biggest fan.
I’m from Brazil. My younger brother just gotted to be diagnosticated with MS.
At this time our family its mess up. He is 17.

May i ask you something? How are you after all this time living with MS?
Do you know a lot of people diagnosticated?
Is it possible to have no sequel after decades?

Please, answer me. I would like to bring him to meet you someday.
Wish you the best

It’s a very promising step whichever way you look at it. Why write these articles trying to scupper people’s hope in future treatments. Sometimes people need hope.

I am so sorry , but I heard from doctors in my country that this story about vaccine for stopping ms is real. One is BioNtech, another one in Russia. And maybe that won' t be this or next year, but in couple will. I have ms since 15 , now 26, so please i have hope because I don't see very good on eye and don't feel fingers very good . Thank you, but don't crush my dream...

I would love to flip vaccine funding to = we will pay you only if you find the cure, otherwise no money. I wonder how quickly a "cure" would be found. In addition, they have no skin in the game. No rush from these researchers at all. Wasted money and time that I don't have. Tina

Yes, It may be the next decade before this may be a treatment. Mice also respond to ursolic acid but not humans. Why? It is caused by EBv

Similar Idea is ata188 from Atara bio in FDA pH 2. May be a temporary solution in a couple years

The body still needs to repair itself if one Has ppms with a vaccine. RRMS. Different story.

More specifics:
100% of people with MS had EBV, sometimes in childhood without symptoms. Other factors such as smoking, vit D, genetics, immune makeup, etc create bad b cells that signal to attack myelin. Proteins such lmp and others from the ebv lodge themselves in the b cells to make them immortal and so they do not attack ebb often in dormant not lytic mode. Ebv also get a free ferry to the brain with the b cells so they can set up the attack, which prompts tc8 t cells to do bad stuff at the t cells direction

How do we fix? Train good generic t cells to attack the bad b cells. A small infusion may reduce or stop more disability. The body is allowed to repair itself, if it can.

DMTs will not address the core problem. Not a cure but still much better. One needs to watch the immune system similar to a vaccine since one is attacking bad b cells, but I think the concept works. This will be a a multbillion $ treatment but be better than ocrevus and sooner than a vaccine. B cell. depletes take out bad b cells and ebb but do not address the core problem.

So in a few years, this can replace ocrevus in my opinion.

My daughter was diagnosed in 2015. Unfortunately was seeing a Neurologist in a well known hospital in Australia. He was against and treatment. Her vitamin D level was 17 nmol, which was extremely low. She avoided the sun for most of her adult life, due to fear of skin cancer.
I found out after 3 years that the neurologist she was seeing was not an MS specialist. Since 2018 she has been seeing a very caring MS specialist when started her on Mavenclad for 2 years and the effect has been extremely good. She also takes 4000 IU
vitamin D and being on plant based diet since the age of 20, she takes Algae oil and few other supplements.
I am hoping one day they will find some drug that could help with remylination of Myelin.