whipworm infection claimed to radically alter course of MS

[Guest guest]

....in small, non-blinded, possibly non-randomized study. Because it is

so small, I am not going to bother evaluating the paper, but just wait

for more definitive work.

" The scientists, who report their work in ls of Neurology, studied

24 people with multiple sclerosis for more than four years, half of

whom became infected with parasites after they were diagnosed with MS1.

Among the patients with parasites, there were only three clinical

relapses, compared with 56 in the non-infected group. And only half of

the infected patients incurred brain lesions from MS, compared with all

of the non-infected patients. "

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070115/full/070115-7.html

In other worm news... Weinstock, the IBD guy, has yet to follow up his

open-label whipworm trial in Crohn's with a controlled trial. He has

performed a controlled trial on ulcerative colitis... 13/30 treated

subjects reached the response measure vs 4/24 in the placebo group, for

a p value of 0.04.