# Multiple Sclerosis - Liberation Treatment **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 22, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519 "2009-11-22T13:25:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/181 "2013-04-04T05:54:13Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > [Tecfidera](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/business/3rd-oral-drug-to-treat-ms-is-approved-by-the-fda.html?_r=0) > > … > > _[snip]_ > > … > > I like this at the end of the article: > “It is not quite clear how Tecfidera works. It is thought that one way is to activate a pathway known as Nrf2, which helps protect the body from oxidative stress.” > > You don’t know?! > > So, one day someone thought up the idea of getting MS patients to take a mold preventative in the hope, I guess, that it would ‘preserve’ their health. Wow. That pretty much sounds like homeopathy to me. > > “It is not quite clear how Tecfidera works”… What scientific process was used to authorize this study? Questions like, “What do you think this will do?” and, “Why do you think it will do it” immediately spring to mind as something that should have been answered before research began. And the result should be that is works exactly as our thesis predicted it would, not, “Shit! We don’t know why it is doing this, but it looks good (and it can make us a boat load of money)!”. > > I’m all for the scientific method. Maybe this drug (mold killer) will actually help people. But not knowing why something worked is pretty damned sloppy research. It is absolutely nothing like homeopathy at all, and it is not sloppy research. Some (many?) of the most commonly accepted disease-modification therapies prescribed to MS sufferers have mechanisms that are poorly understood, if at all. [Copaxone](http://www.nationalmssociety.org/about-multiple-sclerosis/what-we-know-about-ms/treatments/medications/glatiramer-acetate/index.aspx) (glatiramer acetate), for example, is just one example of this. > [@](#): > > Glatiramer acetate is a synthetic protein that simulates myelin basic protein, a component of the myelin that insulates nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. This drug seems to block myelin-damaging T-cells through a mechanism that is not completely understood. and from [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glatiramer_acetate): > [@](#): > > The mechanism of action for glatiramer is unknown, although several have been proposed. To review: there are substances that have been shown in peer-reviewed studies to have positive effects on the course of MS, and further, have been shown to be safe to use. But the mechanism of action is unknown. Does that mean they shouldn’t be used? Ask someone with MS who has consulted with a competent neurologist whether it matters or not whether the mechanism is understood. I suspect that there are many pharmaceuticals (as well as medical procedures and therapies) used today for any number of diseases/conditions where the mechanism of action is not fully understood. “We don’t know why it works, but it works.” Sounds a little too pat for science, but there it is. It’s apparently not a clinical or ethical issue. Let’s go back to homeopathy (which I view as total bollocks) for a moment. If legitimate, peer-reviewed studies showed that homeopathic treatments were effective, even though no one could figure out why (since that crap is just water) would anyone have a problem with the medical establishment using homeopathy as a legitimate treatment? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/182 "2013-04-04T10:19:13Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Ask someone with MS who has consulted with a competent neurologist whether it matters or not whether the mechanism is understood. It doesn’t matter why it works,… if it works. What baffles me is that people are willing to take the word of certain parties who have a vested interest in seeing the status quo continue and fund studies to prove it rather than look impartially at the evidence and not expect that there is one single solution for everyone considering the lack of understanding of what causes the disease. If it is even a single disease. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/183 "2013-04-04T11:24:01Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > IWhat baffles me is that people are willing to take the word of certain parties who have a vested interest in seeing the status quo continue and fund studies to prove it rather than look impartially at the evidence That’s a pretty bold and unsupported charge to make. Look, everyone is happy that your wife is experiencing an improvement in her quality of life. There are a few explanations for that, some that seem to fit the data better than others. But for all the reasons stated in this thread and the studies referenced it’s way too early to say that this particular treatment has significant evidence to support it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/184 "2013-04-04T12:26:50Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Look, everyone is happy that your wife is experiencing an improvement in her quality of life. Absolutely. What posters are not happy about is the continued promotion of an unproven and risky surgical intervention which accumulating evidence shows is ineffective, accompanied by slurs on the motives of those doing the work. I have not seen claims here that the surgeons doing these procedures are in it for the money, but if you’re convinced that filthy lucre is the only relevant motivator in the medical community, you could look for “vested interests” there as well. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/185 "2013-04-04T12:40:06Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > it’s not helpful to imply CCSVI is quackery or compare it to homeopathy. Because there’s quackery, and then there’s medical research that just didn’t pan out. Very different things. Plenty of research doesn’t pan out, very true. Most of the time, however, unproven theories are not widely ballyhooed as the basis of cures, sucking in a sizable patient pool for a complex and expensive treatment, accompanied by claims that the Establishment is suppressing the Truth. At that point, the resemblance to quackery becomes striking. > [@](#): > > it seems to me that the Dr. V Balaji mentioned by truthSeeker2 is just a doctor who performs the procedure so one wouldn’t really expect to find published papers by him any more than you’d expect your dentist to have published a study on gingivitis. If my dentist proclaimed that despite all contrary evidence, he was convinced that gingivitis had no relationship to infection and that he was using a breakthrough vascular treatment that cured it, I’d expect he’d at least have published a case series backing his claims and to be involved in more substantive research. Rather than compare the “liberation treatment” to homeopathy, a more apt analogy might be to the Burzynski Clinic’s “alternative” cancer treatments - another case of expensive, unproven therapies promoted with the claim that Big Pharma/Big Medicine is suppressing the Truth (though promoters of “liberation treatment” have a long way to go to match the dubious ethics of Burzynski and his supporters). ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/186 "2013-04-04T12:49:49Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > It doesn’t matter why it works,… if it works. Yes, it does matter. The [placebo effect](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8797067) is known to be pronounced in MS due to the natural history of the diseases remissions. It’s why people were pushing liberation therapy into the mainstream by having such trials run; MS sufferers tend to feel better following therapy, regardless of the therapy. Personally, I have no problem with someone feeling better due to the placebo effect, but in that regard, I would actually prefer a homeopathic remedy to an invasive surgery as a cheaper and less dangerous alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519/187 "2013-04-04T14:56:32Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > There are a few explanations for that, some that seem to fit the data better than others. I disagree. I saw the reflux, the fix, and the immediate results afterwards. It has been 3 years now with no more relapses longer than any previous time for her before. If it is a coincidence, well, I can only say, “Fcuk”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-sclerosis-liberation-treatment/518519.md?page=9)