Multiple Sclerosis: Complete Literature Review and Appended Hypothesis by Alex Dunedin

This is a complete manuscript created over several years investigating the medicine and science of Multiple Sclerosis.  It forms a literature review which has been arranged and where a particular line of thought has been drawn out to form a hypothesis.  Trying to answer the questions of just what ‘Multiple Sclerosis’ is and what causes it led me to seeing a pattern of events which seemed to make sense in context with all the information which I had read.  Read more…

A Study of Multiple Sclerosis: Treatments by Alex Dunedin

Therapies for multiple sclerosis have emerged over the last decades with the demonstration of efficacy of immunomodulating therapies that impact the course of early multiple sclerosis;  Immunosuppressive drugs such as mitoxantrone and cyclophosphamide; Beta-interferons; an MHC-binding protein that engages the T Cell Receptor (TCR), and glatiramer acetate (GA) are all such a class of therapy [12].
Since the market is split between drugs, there has been intense marketing for market share by pharmaceutical companies.  Much impetus has focused on companies competing to position a superior product.  Marketing devices have taken many forms including physician and lay advocates, advertising, educational programs and postmarketing studies.  There has been an array of claims and counterclaims as exchange [78]. Read more…

A Study of Multiple Sclerosis: A Bibliography by Alex Dunedin

This is the bibliography to the complete study of multiple sclerosis which is being published on the Ragged University website over time.

The information resources listed below have been used to create the study and should be consulted in their original texts and compared to get a deeper perspective of the medicine. This bibliography is for reference and where possible digital links have been made out to the source texts to make the forensic task easier. You can find the full written thesis here: Multiple Sclerosis A Hypothesis

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A Study of Multiple Sclerosis: Description by Alex Dunedin

It was a French neurologist at the Salpetriere in Paris, Jean Martin Charcot, who first described multiple sclerosis in 1868.  He noted the accumulation of inflammatory cells in a perivascular distribution within the brain and spinal cord white matter of patients with intermittent episodes of neurologic dysfunction.  This led to the term ‘sclerose en plaque disseminees’, or Multiple Sclerosis (MS) [12].
In 1933, Thomas Rivers at the Rockefeller Institute demonstrated experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, an autoimmune demyelinating disease in mammals.  He achieved this with the repeated injection of rabbit brain and spinal cord into primates.  This has led to the generally accepted hypothesis that multiple sclerosis is secondary to an autoimmune response to self antigens in a host [12].
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A Study of Multiple Sclerosis: Introduction to Hypothesis by Alex Dunedin

This article is the first of a series which proposes a thesis and hypothesis on the cause of Multiple Sclerosis and potential avenues of therapy.  It has been written as a contribution to the public domain to be critiqued, compared and peer reviewed by people who have an interest in multiple sclerosis, medicine, the sciences and thinking in general. It is an experiment in open online digital peer review and discussion.  Too few people are being included in the communities which get to make meaning, and too great a number are excluded from the conventions which help us to collectively work towards greater understandings.
This is, of course, a reference to science and scientific method.  Never before in history has so much information been available to so many people.  Niether has there ever been a period with so many having access to the stuffs and materials of science.  The endeavour of humanity is held back when a relatively small group of select people decide for all the world that they are the sole paladins of knowledge and what gets included in discussions about matters which concern us all.  This has become the danger as society opens its debates only to those who have had the good fortune to be born in the right place and the right time.  True knowledge is of a deeper character, fortunately, and is available to all. Read more…