A medical website’s headline screamed, “Breakthrough Multiple Sclerosis Vaccine Shows Impressive Results In Study.” The New York Daily News joined in, highlighting a potential “breakthrough” vaccine. Other media outlets also were using similar adjectives last month. Unfortunately, it’s a little too hype-ish for me.
I suspect some of it was was generated because the company sponsoring the research is BioNTech, which helped to develop one of the COVID-19 vaccines. Now, the company is testing its mRNA vaccine model to see if it can be used to reduce the type of inflammation that destroys myelin.
As is typical in these cases, cheerleading by traditional media has been followed by a lot of social media buzz. People with MS have been sharing these stories and sounding a little like “The Little Engine That Could,” repeating, “I think I can, I think I can.”
But hold that train.
It’s a long way to a multiple sclerosis vaccine
I’d like to see a vaccine that can protect our myelin as much as anyone, but I believe we’re still a long way from that day. As Marta Figueiredo reports on the Multiple Sclerosis News Today website, the research in the previously mentioned stories comes from a mouse study.
It’s true, the investigational multiple sclerosis vaccine did prevent disease development in those rodents. In mice with early-stage MS, the vaccine candidate halted progression and restored some lost motor function. But those mice didn’t actually have multiple sclerosis, they were infected with an illness that is similar to MS, called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Also, we’re talking about mice, not men or women.
Don’t jump to conclusions
I don’t like writing about mice studies. A potential treatment may do well on a mouse, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll have the same results in humans. In fact, some researchers are fond of saying mice lie and monkeys exaggerate. There’s even a Twitter account dedicated to this concept.
After the mice tests come the monkeys. If the treatment passes monkey muster, there are then human tests, usually done in three phases. Don’t expect this clinical testing to move at anything like “warp speed,” either. It will likely take years.
As the MS Research Australia website puts it, “While this is an exciting research development, this is still in an early research phase. There are differences between human MS and EAE. … So while this is exciting research, several hurdles need to be cleared before we are likely to see such strategies trialed in humans. In the case of MS, the search for the exact target of the immune system continues.”
They took the words right out of my mouth. Let’s halt the hype that gives false hope. Instead, let’s report, without exclamation points, that another research project is producing some positive results that may, several years from now, lead to an MS vaccine.
Do you agree?
(A version of this post first appeared as my column on the MS News Today website.)
(Featured image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
