Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★ If you don’t measure it you can’t change it. The fact that the UK was performing so poorly relative to other EU countries on the EMSP’s MS barometer was one of the reasons why I got into MS politics and helped put together the ‘Brain Health: Time Matters’ policy document. In 2015, despite being the second wealthiest nation in Europe, the UK was in the...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★ This week I was asked by two patients independently of each other who had delayed access to treatment if this could explain why they now have secondary progressive MS. In parallel, I had a meeting with a friend yesterday, who was the primary driver of the 21-year interferon-beta follow-up survival study (see below), who said that to him this was the most...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: zero-★s The Barts-MS blog is having yet another existential crisis. Have you been to Speakers’ Corner on the Northeast point of Hyde Park in London? If you haven’t I would recommend visiting and spending an hour or so watching and listening. Speakers’ Corner is where anyone, who is anyone, can stand on a soapbox and speak their mind on any topic that takes their...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★★★★ As you know the vast majority of pwMS on anti-CD20 therapy who get COVID-19 or for that matter any other viral infection recover. In other words, their immune systems work despite blunted or absent B-cell or antibody responses. This study presented yesterday at the AAN meeting confirms that ocrelizumab-treated patients who get COVID-19 have good robust T-cell...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★★ There is little doubt in my mind that HSCT is the most effective DMT we have for treating MS. The latter is based on NEDA (no evident disease activity) rates post-HSCT and brain volume loss data after year one. HSCT appears to put the majority of treated patients into long-term remission and normalises end-organ damage as measured by brain volume loss. In...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★★ Should I get an antibody test to prove that I have responded to the COVID-19 vaccine? No, you shouldn’t. Most diagnostic COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests are based on detecting antibodies to the so-called nucleocapsid protein and not the spike protein, which is the protein or immunogen used in the current vaccines. There are, however, a few private...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★ How brain-healthy is your lifestyle? Someone asked yesterday why did I give George Jelinek’s book ‘Overcoming MS’ a positive review and yet we don’t promote it openly on the blog? Very simple our policy is not to advertise commercial products on this blog and if we promoted OMS then what about the other MS-related lifestyle and wellness programmes? I am still...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★ You may have heard that the FDA has suspended dosing of the J&J COVID-19 vaccine as they have identified 6 cases of thrombosis in young woman similar to that described below with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (see articles below). It looks like the complication may therefore be due to the vectors, i.e. adenoviruses, rather than the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein...
Since being hit by a motorbike travelling at high speed and nearly losing my life or independence I now have personal experience of the value of physical neurorehabilitation. When I say #UseItOrLoseIt I really mean it. So if you have more advanced MS and are using a walking stick (EDSS 6.0) we want you to enrol in a #CitizenScience type study in which we are testing a new hand and arm activity...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★ I am increasingly being asked about what is going to happen to MS research and clinical services post-COVID-19. The question is being asked as if I am some kind of futurist or prophet. I am not. My response is let’s focus on the here and now. The following on the issues that need to be addressed this year: Untreated or under-treated MS. There is has been a drop...