Society Principles, New Law Share Ground on Health Care Reform

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society supports comprehensive health
care reform that ensures that the complex needs of people living with
MS are addressed. A broad-based group of volunteers, including many
living with MS, developed the Society's National Health Care
Reform Principles, which have been a blueprint for the Society's
advocacy efforts on health care reform.

Read more:
http://ildmain.nationalmssociety.org/site/R?i=H_hqGQeUrEDD72VPnrSrpQ..

Every MS patient tests positive for the Epstein-Barr virus...new study sheds more light thanks to military records...

Here are what I feel are the highlights of an article posted on the fitMS™ online web site...under the 'newsworthy' link... Please visit www.fitMS.org to read the full article...

The study population was made up of active-duty US Army, Navy, and Marines personnel who have at least one blood sample in the Department of Defense Serum Repository. The electronic databases of the Physical Disability Agencies of the US Army and Navy were then searched for individuals whose records indicated a possible diagnosis of MS reported between 1992 and 2004.

The researchers selected 305 individuals diagnosed with MS and who had blood specimens collected before the date of their diagnosis. Two controls for each case were then selected from the serum database and matched by branch of service, sex, date of blood collection, and age at time of blood collection.

The study found that MS risk is extremely low among individuals not infected with EBV, but it increases sharply in the same individuals following EBV infection.

"The observation that MS occurred only after EBV is a big step forward," said Alberto Ascherio. "Until now we knew that virtually all MS patients are infected with EBV, but we could not exclude two non-causal explanations for this finding: that EBV infection is a consequence rather than a cause of MS, and that individuals who are EBV negative could be genetically resistant to MS. Both of these explanations are inconsistent with the present findings," said Ascherio.

"The evidence is now sufficiently compelling to justify the allocation of more resources to the development of interventions targeting EBV infection, or the immune response to EBV infection, as these may contribute to MS prevention," he said.

share information on medications and/or treatments

As promised in my comment on the main page of the fitMS™ blog...I've tried every medication and treatment I hear about for my MS bladder symptoms over the last 16 years (even before I knew they were related to MS).

My latest is "Gelnique" ...a jell I rub in to my skin daily. One of our live class members brought an article to class she found in Good Housekeeping last summer describing this new method of administering a medication found in many of the medications out there available in pill form.

The idea is that there would be less side effects because the active ingredient is absorbed directly into the bloodstream through the skin instead of being processed by the liver and digestive track.

I've been using Gelnique for 7 days, so I'm sharing my first feedback.

- seems to decrease bladder spasms a little better than the others but this will require a good month or two for a true endorsement...so for now I'll say it works at least as well as all the other meds.

- dry mouth and constipation seem a little better

- I'm not experiencing any skin irritation...mentioned in the possible side effects.

- I have forgotten to apply it at bed time a couple of times... so this will take some extra attention until it becomes habit.

- I've had no urgency this week.

- I'm cautiously optimistic and like the idea of one less pill!

I'll comment again next week.

take care of you