Curing MS : How Science Is Solving the Mysteries of Multiple Sclerosis

by WEINER, HOWARD L. MD

• ISBN13: 9780609609002
• ISBN10: 0609609009
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Crown

Summary

What causes multiple sclerosis? When will there be a cure? Dr. Howard Weiner has spent nearly three decades trying to find answers to the mysteries of multiple sclerosis, an utterly confounding and debilitating disease that afflicts almost half a million Americans. Curing MS is his moving, personal account of the long-term scientific quest to pinpoint the origins of the disease and to find a breakthrough treatment for its victims. Dr. Weiner has been at the cutting edge of MS research and drug development, and he describes in clear and illuminating detail the science behind the symptoms and how new drugs may hold the key to "taming the monster." From the "Twenty-one Points" of MS--a concise breakdown of the knowns and unknowns of the disease--to stories from the frontlines of laboratories and hospitals, Curing MS offers a message of hope about new treatments and makes a powerful argument that a cure can--and will--be found.

Author Biography

HOWARD L. WEINER, M.D., is the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He is founder and director of the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center at the Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston and codirector of the Center for Neurological Diseases at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Weiner has been on the forefront of developing new therapies for MS for more than twenty-five years. He has published widely in the scientific literature on multiple sclerosis and is the author of The Children’s Ward, a novel, and Neurology for the House Officer, a medical text now in its seventh edition. He lives with his wife in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(8)
The Monster	9	(15)
The Spinal Fluid Mystery	24	(13)
Is Ms Two Letters or Three?	37	(19)
The Electricity is Off	56	(13)
Viral Origins	69	(16)
Plasma, Placebos, and Clinical Trials	85	(18)
Jonas Salk Tries to Cure MS	103	(18)
Chemotherapy for MS	121	(21)
T Cells and Tolerance	142	(18)
A Drug for MS, Finally	160	(36)
Copolymer 1	196	(18)
Inflammation Versus Degeneration	214	(15)
Twenty-One Points	229	(22)
Taming the Monster	251	(29)
Going for the Cure	280	(16)
Glossary	296	(4)
Acknowledgments	300	(2)
Index	302