Two decades of soldiers’ medical records implicate common virus in multiple sclerosis

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Northerner

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One hundred and fifty years after a French neurologist first recognized a case of multiple sclerosis (MS) in a young woman with an unusual tremor, the cause of this devastating disease remains elusive. Now, a study that combed data from regular blood tests of 10 million U.S. soldiers has found the strongest evidence yet that infection with a common virus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), dramatically increases a person’s chances of developing the rare disease.

The work leaves many questions, such as why MS only affects about one in 1000 people even though nearly everyone will contract EBV in their lifetime. Still, “It provides probably the best evidence that can currently be obtained for a major pathogenic role of EBV in MS,” says neurologist Hans Lassmann of the Medical University of Vienna, who was not involved in the study.

The study authors hope it will spur the development of a vaccine against EBV. The virus has been linked to several cancers and causes mononucleosis, and early vaccine testing is underway. Researchers then want to test whether vaccinating young people against EBV prevents MS.

 
Maybe this will end in a vaccinate roll out like the HPV program?
Possibly the one thing covid gave us is a better appreciation of the use of vaccines, and more of the "common" diseases will start to be targeted as a matter of course.
 
Nearly everyone gets EB virus in their lifetimes. You might equally say it causes T1 diabetes. Or, indeed, that chicken pox does it.

Immunising everyone against EB virus is a complete waste of money. It won’t have the slightest effect on that 1 in a 1000 frequency of MS. It’s about 1 in 800 in the Scottish highlands. That’s sod all to do with the EB virus, that’s VitD. The geographical variability in MS frequency almost shouts that from the rooftops. (I knew all four of the MS patients on the Isle of Mull, population just over 3,000.)

Association is not causation. That’s Victorian thinking, the miasma and air coming off the stinking River Thames being the cause of cholera.
 
Nearly everyone gets EB virus in their lifetimes. You might equally say it causes T1 diabetes. Or, indeed, that chicken pox does it.

Immunising everyone against EB virus is a complete waste of money. It won’t have the slightest effect on that 1 in a 1000 frequency of MS. It’s about 1 in 800 in the Scottish highlands. That’s sod all to do with the EB virus, that’s VitD. The geographical variability in MS frequency almost shouts that from the rooftops. (I knew all four of the MS patients on the Isle of Mull, population just over 3,000.)

Association is not causation. That’s Victorian thinking, the miasma and air coming off the stinking River Thames being the cause of cholera.

Victorian thinking was the more blood on a surgeon the better he was.
Then we started washing them.
Surprisingly, things got better.

That's the problem with carrying on as we always done.
Things tend not to change.
So what if everyone used to get EB?
Why do they need to keep getting it?

Your "Thames" is an excellent case in point. The drinking water for London was fed by the Thames in Victorian times, so as a Doctor, because you clearly know it couldn't be the smell, your advice would be "carry on drinking" as no one had proven it was actually in the water by then?
What's the basis for the VitD conclusion, apart from cause and effect?
 
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