Miami Herald - Friday, November 15, 1985
Steve Sternberg, Herald Medical Writer

The research does not prove that a virus causes the crippling nerve disease. However, it coincides with the findings of a study by The Miami Herald suggesting that MS may be infectious -- but only in persons who are susceptible when they are exposed.

The study, published by three research teams in the journal Nature, offers new insights into the disease -- and what one doctor termed "overwhelming" evidence that if a virus is involved, it is one of many factors governing who will get the ailment.

"I think this disease is multifactorial," said Dr. Elaine DeFreitas, a co-author from the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. "I don't know whether the virus plays a role yet -- and we won't know until we isolate it, study it and reproduce the disease in an animal model."

Officials at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in New York called the findings "interesting," but cautioned that other viruses have been linked to MS, though none appear to cause the ailment.

"We do welcome this," said Stephen Reingold, the society's assistant director for research. "I'm not saying this isn't valid; I'm saying the meaning is unclear."

Even so, Dr. Robert Gallo, head of the National Cancer Institute team that worked on the study, noted that all previous research has focused on known viruses that cause other diseases. This study indicates a virus that has not been linked to any other disease and has been found only in MS patients.

"We're definitely not saying a virus is causing MS," Gallo said. "We're saying we see the footprints of a virus and that this is an important lead that needs to be followed."

The scientists looked for two signs of viral infection -- a type of antibody, a substance produced by blood cells to ward off infection and traces of a foreign genetic material embedded in the center of patients' blood cells.

To carry out the study, the research teams compared 52 MS patients with 104 healthy persons. They found antibodies to a virus similar but not identical to HTLV-1, which causes a rare type of cancer, in blood and spinal fluid of 60 percent of their patients, but in none of the healthy persons.

At least three of 17 people with other nerve diseases had evidence of the antibodies, suggesting the patients have been infected at some time with a particular virus, the researchers say. No one knows what the virus is, nor has a virus been found.

One clue was reported in the blood of five of eight MS sufferers. Embedded in white cells, called T-cells, were bits of genetic material from the HTLV--1-like virus.

The evidence is of particular interest in Key West, where the MS rate exceeds 100 for every 100,000 people and doctors have diagnosed more than 26 definite MS victims -- including 11 among health workers at Florida Keys Memorial Hospital.

The researchers from the University of Miami, Wistar Institute and National Cancer Institute offered this reassurance to Key West MS victims: Even their closest friends or family members are unlikely to come down with the disease.

Scientists searched for the new virus not only in 17 Key West MS victims, but also in equal numbers of family members and healthy volunteers at Florida Keys Memorial Hospital. None were infected, said Dr. William Sheremata, one of the study's authors and an MS specialist at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

"Whatever the agent," Sheremata said, "None of the controls, even those in intimate contact or in contact with the affected hospital workers, showed any antibody to it."

If a virus is proved to be a cause of MS, it may lead to development of a vaccine, years from now. In the more immediate future, Sheremata said, may lie a test for multiple sclerosis, a crippling nerve disease which afflicts an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 Americans.

It strikes about 8,800 each year, mostly young adults, but is believed to be contracted at an early age and lay dormant. The disease can cause weakness, intolerance to heat, tremors and, in a small percentage of cases, blindness and paralysis.

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