von DIRECT-MS, Dienstag, 2. November 2010 um 09:54

George Ebers is perhaps the #1 MS researcher in the world and is a professor at Oxford in England. Notably he is also one of the few MS researchers who is not compromised by major financial ties to the MS drug companies. He recently expressed his well supported views on, why the clinical trials of the MS drugs are basically worthless, in an abstract for his presentation at a neurology conference in Barcelona.

He writes

"Clinical trials of multiple sclerosis have been uniform in utilising invalidated outcome measures. This has occurred to a degree to which it is difficult to find parallels in medicine in general. We have recently evaluated the outcomes which have been used for evaluating past trials leading to drug approval and current trials. It is not a pretty sight. 

It is quite clear from natural history studies that relapses have very little if anything to do with long term outcome. Similarly, MRI measures have been thoroughly evaluated within large datasets and found to be similarly non-predictive for meaningful outcomes. The measures of disability used in trials certainly don’t measure unremitting disability as investigators and their industry supporters have claimed.

The widespread embracing of dubious and poorly validated outcomes by some MS investigators, often in contexts where there are egregious conflicts of interest, threaten academic credibility not to mention long term professional autonomy."

Source: 

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=166181470078027&id=120219874688668

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