Subject: "Official" Info on Baylor Study

From: LaVonne Murphy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 21:20:05 -0700

Memo from Public Affairs Dept NMSS

RE: Misleading Report on ABC-TV News from Baylor College of Mdeicine, on
early experimental work in vaccine-like treatment for MS.

A report that ran December 19 and 20 via satellite on many ABC-TV news
stations and perhaps other media outlets discussed the experimental work
of Jingwu Zhang, MD, PhD, at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and
preliminary results from early testing of a vaccine-like treatment for
multiple sclerosis (MS).

(This is what was repeated more recently on a slow news day according to
the IRC {Information Resource Center} at NMSS.)

In the segment Dr. Zhang is quoted as saying, "We know that we can slow
down the disease, the disease progress and (in) many patients we see
that the disease progress has stopped."

Dr. Zhang is one of the many researchers around the world who are
investigating ways to stop immune-system cells, called T cells, from
causing the destruction of nerve-insulating myelin in MS>

Dr. Zhang takes T cells that react against a component of myelin,
inactivates the T cells using x-radiation, and injects the inactive T
cell into the patients' blood.  To date, this highly experimental
procedure has been done in only a few people.  These studies have been
too small to determine whether this approach is useful.

According to Zhang, over and above the woman at Baylor, 32 patients have
received his vaccine in Belgium but as far as we know no results are
published beyond a Lancet study in September '95 with 8 patients which
had inconclusive findings.

Moreover, with the natural relapsing-remitting course of this lifelong
disease, no conclusion about the progress of the trial participants'
multiple sclerosis can be made at this time.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is supporting much research in
this area.  Although these research approaches are promising, there is a
great deal of work yet to be done, and it will be several years before
we know whether these vaccine-like treatments are safe and effective
against MS.

(This memo came from the Dept of Public Affairs in Dec. 1996 and we were
refered to it when the last stuff came up this month and we asked for
more info.)

       L

-- 
The Grocery Bag Law
The candy bar you planned to eat on the way home from the
market is hidden at the bottom of the grocery bag.
(comment: especially if it's chocolate!!!)