Miami Herald - Wednesday, NOV 13 1985
Steve Sternberg, Herald Medical Writer

Stephen Reingold, vice president for research for the MS society, said there is no evidence that "MS is communicable or contagious."

The Miami Herald study of 29 multiple sclerosis victims in Key West suggests that prolonged person-to-person contact may play a more critical role in transmitting the disease than was previously believed.

The Key West study was published a few days before two of the nation's most respected research teams plan to announce they have discovered a new, unidentified virus in MS patients in Key West and in Sweden.

Researchers at the Wistar Institute and the National Cancer Institute say the newly discovered virus is similar but not identical to HTLV-1, a virus that causes rare type of cancers.

Their discovery, the researcher said in a release, is "suggestive, but not conclusive" that this virus plays a role in multiple sclerosis.

The recent discovery that viruses cause cancer and other diseases has broadened what researchers now consider infectious ailments. For example, the cancers of leukemia and lymphoma recently have been entered in a government field manual for infectious diseases.

This does not mean that these diseases are widely contagious, however. Other factors, including genetics, environment and a previous history of infectious disease all could play a role.

"Many people got the message that multiple sclerosis is catchy and that is unfortunate," said Dr. William A. Sheremata, the University of Miami researcher who discovered the Key West MS outbreak. "MS is not infectious in the usual sense."

Emerging is evidence that some diseases are infectious only under certain circumstances. A virus may be one key factor -- but unless a victim is genetically susceptible and exposed when he is most vulnerable, he will not become ill.

In multiple sclerosis, one key factor is genetics. That apparently is why the families of victims have nothing to fear from the disease.

"I would ask you to look to yourselves, your wives and families and see how many have multiple sclerosis," Reingold said, speaking at an annual meeting of the South Florida chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

"I will be the first person to say there is more MS in Key West than you would expect to see," Reingold said, but evidence that the disease may be infectious must come from a "competent physician and scientist."

The Herald study, analyzed by Lee Husting, professor and epidemiologist at the University of South Florida, suggests, however, that multiple, repeated, very close contact can transmit the disease.

The suggestion that MS could be an infectious ailment could attach a terrible stigma to sufferers, said society member Stan Baron, who has had MS for 37 years. "You are making us lepers in the eyes of the community."

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