What does CCSVI research have to do with two rats?

Well, nothing really. But the research history of CCSVI and these two rats intersect in a way that is both troubling and promising.

Two rats, let’s call them Larry and Sally, were artificially given MS.

We know the rats didn’t actually have MS because if we could figure out how to give an animal the illness we would be a lot closer to solving the puzzle. But, Larry and Sally were given an MS-like disorder by injecting them with their own myelin by a researcher called Linda working at her Colorado University lab.

Linda’s research into chronic pain was funded by a pharmaceutical company developing new drugs. One of these drugs was injected into Larry after both he and Sally developed MS-like symptoms, presumably pain, and paralysis.

While Sally received no treatment and remained disabled, Larry started running around his cage and showing off his physical prowess. Sally was not amused.

But Linda was very impressed. Linda thought “Oh my God. This is huge. We weren’t looking for a cure to paralysis. We were looking for a way to treat neuropathic pain. It was complete serendipity. There was nothing in the scientific literature at that time that said [the drug] could do this to paralysis.”

Linda’s research results were announced in late 2010, causing a little ripple in the media. In March, a Colorado publication of the University itself ran a little overboard with its coverage of her findings.

The headline: “Closer to a cure?” was followed by “Shock. Disbelief. Euphoria. Choose your emotion. All these feelings washed over Linda Watkins as she huddled in front of the computer last year in her cramped Boulder office.”

The paper then asked, “In the breathless moments that followed, an intriguing possibility entered her mind: Could a drug originally developed to remedy chronic pain actually be capable of treating and reversing the effects of MS?”

The article goes on to say the drug to treat chronic pain has “made a paralyzed rat walk.”

Linda is looking for research funding to continue her work. Hopefully, the drug company will again step up to the plate on this one. It’s very promising and deserves further research.

The troubling aspects of the saga of Larry and Sally are that we are talking about TWO rats – a sample size that may be good enough for exploratory work, but hardly big enough to start calling a drug a cure for MS.

The CCSVI community has been accused of spreading false hope based on research and anecdotal evidence based on thousands (nearing tens of thousands) of real people with a real illness. These numbers cannot be ignored or written off as coincidental. Yet, somehow they are, while two rats are touted as heralding the cure for MS.

At least no one is going to tell Larry it’s just a placebo effect.

Link to article here (you can leave a comment on it if you like):

http://www.coloradanmagazine.org/2011/03/01/closer-to-a-cure/

http://www.facebook.com/notes/ccsvi-at-ubc-ms-clinic-information-and-support/the-tale-of-larry-and-sally-two-rats-with-ms/10150150841717734