BLOG: Supplements, a cautionary tale of betrayal (ENCORE)

[ActiveMSers]

When I heard the news, I was speechless. How could basic supplements cause this? About 80 percent of people with multiple sclerosis take vitamins and dietary supplements for their disease—so yes, I told my neurologist, I took a host of multi-colored pills every day. Fish oil. Glucosamine. Chondroitin. Daily multivitamin. Melatonin. Others…. “Stop them all immediately,” he said. So I threw each pill bottle into the trash, probably a hundred dollars worth or more. There wasn’t anything else I could do.

http://activemsers.blogspot.com/2012...-betrayal.html

[ya ya]

The whole Campath thing makes me very unhappy. They plan to call it Lemtrada and charge you triple Not only that they took off the market in some countries so you can't use it off label anymore . Crooks

I had a good dose of Campath and it wasn't to bad side effect wise. Woke up with a chill the first night.

[ActiveMSers]

I agree, what they are doing with Campath is a little sketchy ethically, but they are hardly alone. I just read a piece in the NYT on Acthar and how the cost has skyrocketed from almost nothing to tens of thousands of dollars. Few doctors will treat an MS relapse with that medication now.

That said, if Campath/Lemtrada is as good as it sounds with (relatively) few serious side effects and a potent way to slow down, even reverse, disability, then I'll give them a bit more leeway. MSers need this drug, and if this is the only way to bring it to market, then so be it. I imagine there may be other already-released drugs that would help us, but if there is no method to make a profit, then those will languish forever. Why? Companies that can't make a profit will never invest the millions of dollars it takes to set up the multiple clinical trials necessary to get FDA approval. It's just too much of a gamble if it doesn't work. Sad, but that's the reality. I fear that is the case with my SCT treatment, since it isn't attached to a drug company and the government is too poor to do the research themselves.