Free Republic

A new study—the largest of its kind globally—has found children with multiple sclerosis (MS) have better outcomes if treated early and with the same high-efficacy therapies as adults. There are a limited number of therapies approved for children with MS, with only one considered to be of high efficacy—meaning highly effective. However, a Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) observational study has determined that pediatric patients should be treated with the same high-efficacy treatments offered to adults as early in their diagnosis as possible to avoid the onset of significant disability. "We found that patients who were treated with high-efficacy disease-modifying therapies...

Fran Itkoff, 90, has been volunteering for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for roughly six decades, helping multitudes of people who suffer from the disease that plagued her late husband. The elderly volunteer recently told Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok that her days with the MS Society have been unceremoniously brought to an end because she allegedly dared to question the organization's social construcivist virtue signals — the provision of gender pronouns in particular. While ostensibly an organization committed to fighting disease, the MS Society has in recent years become infected by identitarian and LGBT ideologies. In 2020, the...

National MS Society makes a 90-year-old volunteer step down because she wasn’t “inclusive” enough. Her crime was asking what pronouns are after she was required to start using them. Fran was a volunteer for 60 years and her late husband had MS.

On Monday, January 22, 2024, Carroll County Deputies responded to a call for help. The caller who was at work in Greenwood reported that a knife wielding man was attempting to enter his home in the Gravel Hill area of Carroll County. He further stated that his wife and three children were inside the home hiding in a closet. The caller identified the suspect and gave a description of the vehicle. As deputies responded to the scene, they came upon a vehicle fitting that description. Deputies conducted a felony traffic stop in the parking lot of Acy’s Store, but the...

A team has discovered that a diet containing wheat can increase the severity of multiple sclerosis (MS). This is due to the amylase trypsin inhibitors (ATI), natural proteins in wheat, while the gluten proteins did not influence the inflammatory reaction. The studies confirm that diet and gut health can influence the course of chronic inflammatory diseases, including MS. What is special, is that a specific ingredient can promote this inflammation. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. Amylase trypsin inhibitors (ATI) are natural proteins found in cereals such as wheat, barley and rye. As the scientists...

Ms. Magazine, which has a history of fabricating truths, straight-up lying, and being just about as pro-left as an outlet can be, released a piece last week titled “Punish, Torture, Kill: The Reality of Pregnancy in ‘Pro-Life’ America.” The piece aims to insist that the pro-life movement only exists to “force women to carry pregnancies against their will.” The piece is penned by Jill Filipovic, one of the staunchest abortion supporters in existence. Filipovic, when not writing dramatized pieces for Ms. Magazine, writes for Cosmopolitan and CNN, two notoriously left-leaning, abortion supporting outlets. It’s no wonder she went ham with...

Interview Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the Open Source movement, is ready for what comes next: the Post-Open Source movement. "I've written papers about it, and I've tried to put together a prototype license," Perens explains in an interview with The Register. "Obviously, I need help from a lawyer. And then the next step is to go for grant money."Perens says there are several pressing problems that the open source community needs to address.I feel that IBM has gotten everything it wants from the open source developer community now, and we've received something of a middle finger from...

A common microbe found in sewage, marine sediment, soil, and the GI tracts of pets and farm animals may play a defining role in multiple sclerosis, according to a new study. The findings, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, suggest that a toxin produced by certain C. perfringens bacteria may be the long sought-after trigger that degrades the blood-brain barrier and kicks off the relentless inflammation and brain cell degradation characteristic of MS. “If this is the environmental trigger for MS, we can now start talking about a vaccine, monoclonal antibodies, or some other therapy,” says Rashid Rumah, co-author...

Scientists have discovered a surprising connection between brain cells involved in producing the insulation around nerve fibers, our sleep patterns, and neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). The cells studied are a type of glial cell known as oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs). These cells can mature into oligodendrocytes, which are responsible for making myelin—the insulation that ensheaths nerve fibers throughout the brain and speeds neuronal signaling. But before OPCs turn into oligodendrocytes, they have other duties. Gibson revealed that another unexpected role of OPCs may involve sleep. As a circadian biologist, Gibson is familiar with the effects that our...

UCI researchers have found that a simple sugar, N-acetylglucosamine, reduces multiple inflammation and neurodegeneration markers in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS). In addition, they also found this dietary supplement improved neurological function in 30% of patients. A major issue with current therapies in MS is the inability to treat chronic-active neuroinflammation in the brain and the associated failure to repair the loss of myelin that covers and protects axons, the electrical wires of the brain. Over time, this leads to permanent nerve cell damage and slow progressive loss of neurological function in patients. "Our previous studies in mice...

Researchers from Pritzker Molecular Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell, demonstrated that their compound can eliminate the autoimmune response linked to multiple sclerosis. Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have developed a novel vaccine that, in laboratory tests, can completely reverse autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and Crohn’s disease — all without shutting down the rest of the immune system. A typical vaccine teaches the human immune system to recognize a virus or bacteria as an enemy that should be attacked. The new “inverse vaccine” does just the opposite:...

Patients report that a ketogenic diet (KD) improves multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms, according to a study. Emma Wetmore and colleagues evaluated patient perceptions of the KD. The analysis included three-month follow-up from 52 participants with relapsing MS previously enrolled in a prospective six-month KD trial. The researchers found that 21 percent of participants reported continued adherence to a strict KD, while 37 percent reported adhering to a liberalized, less restrictive form of the KD. At the end of the trial, participants with greater reductions in body mass index and fatigue while on the diet were more likely to continue on...

A study conducted has demonstrated for the first time that the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) can be significantly improved by additionally measuring the thickness of retinal layers in the eye. Use of the procedure, which is already available, helps to detect the condition at an earlier stage and predict its progression more accurately. This can lead to a decisive increase in the chance of improved patient outcomes. As part of their investigation, the research team collaborated to examine 267 MS patients over a period of five years. Their research builds on study results, which showed that MS relapse-related damage...

On June 28, 2023, Judge Carlton W. Reeves, District Judge in the Southern District of Mississippi and Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission, issued an order dismissing the case against Jessie Bullock for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. Mr. Bullock was convicted of aggravated assault and manslaughter in 1992. He served about 15 years in prison. In 2015 Mr. Bullock was convicted of fleeing law enforcement and attempted aggravated assault of a police officer. He served five years of probation. Bullock was charged with knowingly possessing a firearm in May of 2018, although for various reasons, the...

An article evaluates the risk of recurrence of active disease in older patients with multiple sclerosis after discontinuing disease-modifying therapies. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic illness, often presenting in young adulthood. Over time, as people age, new attacks and MRI changes become less common, and either patients stabilize, or they may go into a phase of slow progressive neurological disability with minimal MRI changes. There is no cure for MS, but there are now over 20 disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) that may substantially diminish the risks of new attacks and MRI changes. The article reports the results of a clinical...

*A Navy base in Mississippi erected a wall of shipping containers to protect itself from stray bullets. *Stray bullets have struck multiple homes on the base and are coming from a nearby apartment complex. *A spokesperson for the base said the barrier is meant as a "temporary solution." A Mississippi military base in the small city of Gulfport put up a wall of shipping containers after stray bullets from a nearby gunfight struck homes on the base. The base first placed more than 20 shipping containers around its perimeter last year after gunfire broke out in the apartment complex across...

For patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), rituximab is not noninferior to ocrelizumab, according to a study. Izanne Roos, M.B.Ch.B., Ph.D. and colleagues examined whether the effectiveness of rituximab is noninferior to ocrelizumab in relapsing-remitting MS in an observational cohort study. Participants had a history of relapsing-remitting MS treated with ocrelizumab or rituximab, a minimum follow-up of six months, and sufficient data to calculate the propensity score. The analysis included 710 patients treated with ocrelizumab and 186 treated with rituximab. The researchers found that the annualized rate of relapses ratio was higher in patients treated with rituximab versus ocrelizumab (rate...

A decade after scientists identified an over-the-counter antihistamine as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, researchers have developed an approach to measure the drug's effectiveness in repairing the brain. The researchers, led by Ari Green, used MRI scans to study the drug's impact on the brain of 50 participants in a clinical study. In MS, patients lose myelin, the protective insulation around nerve fibers. This myelin loss triggers delays in nerve signals, leading to weakness and spasticity, and other symptoms. In the brain, water trapped between the thin layers of myelin that wrap nerve fibers cannot move as freely as water...

A best treatment pathway has been identified for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) whose current medication puts them at risk of a serious brain infection. MS patients who take the highly effective drug natalizumab are monitored regularly for their risk of developing a potentially deadly brain infection known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), caused by a human virus called John Cunningham virus (JCV). Even though the risk of PML is small, the prognosis is poor, with an average six-month life expectancy. If their six-monthly blood monitoring shows an increased risk of JCV, many patients switch treatment, but patients who stop...

Nerve cells that make up the gray matter in our brain allow us to perform different tasks. They are interconnected millions of times by nerve fibers running deeper in the brain, called axons. Many of these axons are wrapped by a cellular "insulating tape." The insulating cover is made of myelin, a lipid-rich substance that coats axons in up to 150 layers. Together, axons and myelin form what is known as white matter. When a signal is transmitted from one cell to the other by means of an electrical nerve impulse, it literally jumps from one node to the next....