Jim's MS Gallery
http://clik.to/MSjim
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Father of the Year award from the local MS society.
By: MARION CALLAHAN - Bucks County Courier Times
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-06152003-107914.html
Hollywood champions MS research
By: Adele Slaughter & Stephen A. Shoop, M.D.
Bill Pullman only portrayed the president of the United States in the
mega-hit Independence Day. In the civilian world, Pullman really is the
Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS).
"I was inspired to be the National MS Society spokesman because several
friends have multiple sclerosis (MS)," adds Pullman. "One friend in
particular, the wife of a college friend, has MS. She was diagnosed decades
ago and I have been following her illness. I guess I thought she was going
to get better until I realized it was a chronic disease."
Pullman recently attended the 28th Annual Dinner of Champions in Los
Angeles. He was joined by such Hollywood luminaries as Warren Beatty,
Annette Bening, Penny Marshall, David Lander, Tony Danza, David Arquette, and Young & the Restless star Don Diamont. Singers Charlotte Church and Paul Anka were the evening's featured entertainers.
"MS is a disease that a lot of people overlook," says Church. "People my age are well aware of cancer and AIDS, but MS is something you don't really think about and it's a horrible disease. I know a lot of people through
charities like this can keep their disease under control."
The dinner was chaired for the tenth year in a row by Tom Sherak, a partner Revolution Studios, and honored Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, for his help raising funds to fight against MS.
"I started this event because my daughter who is 30 now and pregnant with her second child was diagnosed when she was 15 years old," says Sherak. "It was heartbreaking. As a family, we needed to do something and we decided to help find a cure, which lead us to the MS Society. Then we realized not only did we need to find a cure, but we needed to help people who suffer from the disease who couldn't help themselves."
Including QVC's Cure by the Shore donation of nearly $1 million, the event
raised $3.7 million for the research, programs, and services that the NMSS
provides.
Ruthless disease
MS is a chronic auto-immune disease which attacks the nervous system and can be mild, intermittent, or steadily progressive.
"You're not born with MS," says Lander, who played Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley. "It can attack anybody at any time without warning. It runs in some people's families, but it's not inherited. No one ever had it in my family before I did. It hits about 200 people a week between the ages of 20 and 40.
So right when you're in the prime of life, you suddenly lose your future."
According to the NMSS, the disease affects approximately 375,000 Americans.
But a Zogby Poll suggests that the number of people with MS may as high as two million. The statistical discrepancy may be due to the fact that MS
remains difficult to definitively diagnosis since the symptoms are
mercurial. Additionally, there is no single test that can confirm or rule
out MS.
"Seventy percent of the people who have MS have remitting relapsing," notes Pullman. "Unfortunately, my friend has secondary progressive, so it's pretty severe. She is in a wheelchair and her speech is slurred, but she came to Broadway to see Goat, the play that I did, and that was inspiring."
No two patients experience the same progression of the disease, though in
general, MS slowly disables the patient, lowering their quality of life. The
immune system's attack on the central nervous system causes inflammation, demyelination, and dysfunction of nerve impulse transmissions. The most common symptoms of MS include:
· Numbness or tingling
· Unprecedented fatigue and weakness
· Loss of vision in one eye
· Difficulty walking or coordination impairment
· Slurred speech
· Bladder problems
"There are people with MS whose lives are incredibly disrupted because of
this disease, and part of it is because it has peculiar fluctuations that
make it seem like they are getting better," says Pullman. "It is difficult
for the people around them to sustain sympathy and empathy and to endure what they have to endure. Caretakers and those with MS have incredible courage."
Independence
Many new treatments provide hope for those with MS.
The FDA-approved drugs are called the ABCR's. These include Avonex,
Betaserone, Copaxone, and Rebif, and work as immunomodulators, or agents that reduce the immune system's effect on the central nervous system. Avonex is the most widely used of these agents, although Copaxone, the only one of the ABCRs that is not an interferon, is seeing increased use. All of these drugs have been shown to be effective in relapsing-remitting MS.
Researchers are constantly looking for new treatments for MS. It has been
known for some time that for some pregnant women their MS symptoms seem to improve temporarily.
"We were excited to find that when we treated women with MS with a pregnancy hormone called estriol, that the MRI's of their brain, their immune function, and their blood cells had improved," says Rhonda Voskuhl, associate professor of neurology at UCLA. "It's a very early study with only a handful of patients so clearly we have to do phase two and three studies."
"Giving estriol to women was very easy, because in Europe and Asia it was
given to women to help with menopause, so we knew it was safe," explains Voskuhl. "Men haven't taken it, so we really don't know what the side effects would be for them. We do have a study we just started for men. Men are less susceptible to MS than young women, so we imagined that testosterone is protective."
In a new study at UCLA researchers are going to give testosterone to men and establish levels equal to those of an 18-year-old to determine if high
levels of testosterone can be protective.
"We're not neglecting men," says Voskuhl. "It's just that these hormone
therapies need to be tailored to each gender. Hormone research could be very good news for the men and women affected by MS."
The good news now is that for over a decade the Dinner of Champions has been helping patients and families fight MS.
"I think they're making progress, says Tony Danza. "Eventually they'll find
a cure because of people like Tom Sherak and those honored here tonight who are indomitable and simply won't take 'no' for an answer."
"People with MS are the real heroes," says Pullman. "They are the ones with courage and I hope we can raise even more money and awareness to fight MS. That's what will get the job done."
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Webcast Links of Interest ...
http://healthology.com/webcast_transcript.asp?f=m_sclerosis&c=m_sclerosis_invisiblems&b=healthology&spg=ART
http://healthology.com/webcast_transcript.asp?f=m_sclerosis&c=ms_newstudyresults&b=healthology&spg=ART
http://healthology.com/focus_article.asp?f=m_sclerosis&c=body_againstitself&b=healthology&spg=NWL#
http://healthology.com/printer_friendly.asp?f=m_sclerosis&c=ms_newstudyimplication
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Jim's MS Page
http://clik.to/MSjim
* Information included in this newsletter is gathered from a variety of sources. Jim claims no responsibility for the accuracy of information ...