What causes MS?

According to the MS Society:

While the exact cause of MS is not known, current research increasingly points to a complex interplay of environmental and possibly genetic risk factors. Together these two factors may influence a risk for

developing MS given a prescribed set of conditions which are yet to be

discovered. MS is NOT contagious, and is NOT inherited, although the genetic

influence on susceptibility is a major thrust of research supported by the MS

Society of Canada

and its Scientific Research Foundation.

Are you confused? Do you remember how to précis from your days of taking high school English Composition? Let me précis this for you,

What causes MS? The Precis

Don’t know. It’s not contagious and it looks like it could be caused by environmental factors and it’s not inherited unless it is genetic. (Huhhh!!) That is what the MS Society will research.

Perhaps the MS Society should have quit while they were ahead with the one statement that is basically true - the exact cause of MS is not known. And this one is a pretty safe bet too - MS is NOT contagious. Ok so

now you can kiss me, have sex with me and or sneeze all over me and I won’t

catch your MS. The rest of this paragraph – “ and (MS) is NOT inherited,

although the genetic influence on susceptibility is a major thrust of research

supported by the MS Society of Canada and its Scientific Research Foundation.” Means

exactly what?? It is a lot of double talk and drivel. I can’t speak for other families but here is

how MS affects my family. There is no MS on my Mothers side of the family. On

my Father’s side, one of his 7 siblings had it and it only reared it’s ugly

head as far as anyone knows in his later years. The rest of them and their

numerous children are MS free except me. Sorry but genetics (as in inherited) does

not just leap off the page at me.

Environmental factors – maybe I’ll buy that. There is so much crud in the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe, it will probably turn out to be the cause of a lot of problems. Perhaps that crud messed up some

element of my DNA or maybe it messed up something altogether unrelated. Maybe

that DDT they used to spray all over hell’s half acre affected the way my veins

and arteries developed or maybe they developed just fine but it messed up the

way they work. Maybe that is just a side issue and it is really that I do not

produce enough or maybe I produce too much of some hormone. But I am not a

scientist. So what do I know?? Judging by the MS Society’s statement, I know as

much as they do. And I can make as many good guesses with my grade 12, and

college certificate education as they do with their years of medical school and

neurology and all those other ‘ologies’ they have. Their statement is a really

vague one so back to the drawing board with the causes and the statement.

I suppose one could be very lucky. Pick a disease or condition. Put the possible causes on a board and throw a dart and hit the right guess and indeed find a cure. But the odds of winning the lottery are probably better. Kind of looks

like the MS Society did just that though and then developed tunnel vision about

their pick.

Perhaps the better route at this point in time is to look at some of the symptoms. Find an answer to them. Like Dr. Zamboni has done. I have been reading, like so many other MSers, the success stories, partial success

stories and the “It was a dud’ stories coming out of the rush to get the

Liberation Treatment. I have watched the video of one young man who spent years

unable to walk, climbing stairs – months after the treatment. The MS Society

would have you believe that this is just a Placebo effect – wanting to be

better so badly you fool yourself into being better. Hmmm!!! Sounds like hypochondria more than a placebo

effect. Of course, if it is hypochondria, there are 76,000 Canadian people give

or take and God only knows how many there are in the other affected countries,

who are doing a fabulous job of pretending to have MS. Or maybe it means that

there are doctors who have misdiagnosed 76,000 hypochondriacs with MS, Oh Yeah!

I forgot, the lesions. Well maybe we are

so clever we can think ‘lesions’ so hard that they will magically show up on an

MRI. Here’s a novel thought – This guy in the video really does have MS; the

liberation treatment really did help. One of the symptoms is CCSVI. When the

symptom was treated it went away.

Perhaps those who only had partial results or no results, have other undetected veins that are still blocked or maybe for them a different symptom is dominant or maybe the doctors and technicians doing it

just need more experience or better training. Maybe MS is not the kind of

condition that will ever have a ‘One Size Fits All’ solution.

Maybe the research the MS Society of Canada has been working on is, in fact, useful. Maybe it will become more obvious where and when it is useful if the CCSVI part of the condition is not there to

worry about. Maybe the members of the Society who are reacting rather than

acting on Dr. Zamboni’s findings, can still be the heros they would like to be.

Or maybe they don’t give a continental damn and just want the flow of cash from

drug companies to keep coming so they can support a lifestyle very few MSers will

ever be able to have even if they can afford it. My gut tells me it is a money

thing. My heart wants to believe that, as Canadians, they are somehow above that

kind of sleazy behaviour.

Ok This started out as a critique of one paragraph from the Canadian MS Society Page. It has made me appreciate Miss Stanton, one of my High School English teachers and Don

Stewart, another of my English teachers. They would rip up one side of me and

down the other if I had ever written such a vague, say nothing statement. For all that, I still do not know what causes MS!:o)