Curing MS: How Science Is Solving the Mysteries of Multiple Sclerosis (Hardcover)

by Howard L. Weiner (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The New England Journal of Medicine
Scientists, medical researchers, and academic physicians share a fundamental shortcoming: we consistently fail to translate and describe our professional world -- its struggles, its successes, and even its basic workings -- to the general public. In science, this flaw, lamentably, affects the people who direct funding policies, and in medicine it denies knowledge to patients who hope for improvements in and possible cures for their condition. As science rapidly grows more complex and technical, the gap widens between scientific realities and public perceptions of how science works. Indeed, the daily televised diet of medical breakthroughs fails to convey the complexities of medical progress and the difficulties involved in bringing a bench observation to the stage of useful therapy. (Figure) Enter Howard Weiner, a veteran neurologist with decades of experience in medical research on multiple sclerosis, with a monograph on the medical history of such research and the clinical realities of the disease. He draws a rich, fascinating portrait of important failures and successes in this difficult field of medicine. Almost an autobiography, this book is well written and detailed. It also appeals through down-to-earth language that avoids trivialization and places complex biology within the grasp of the interested but uninitiated reader. With mastery, Weiner mixes anecdote with the teaching of biologic, statistical, and medical processes, rendering a living tale that keeps the reader's attention. There is much passion here as the author highlights decades of continuing frustration in the search for causes of the clinically varied and elusive, chronically progressive condition of multiple sclerosis and its many subtypes. This book will be instructive and interesting for patients, their families, and many people with other chronic diseases. The book manages to entertain while drawing a clear picture of the evolving process that drives medical progress, however slowly and ponderously. Few issues remain untouched, from the need for (and danger of) ego as the investigator weathers the many frustrations before the rare successes occur to the stony path from bench observation to bedside use. The tone is inherently optimistic as the book highlights the development and regulatory approval of the small but slowly growing number of drugs approved or already used for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. By and large, the author avoids diving too deeply into science and technology, and he freely and frequently admits that an understanding of the mechanisms involved in multiple sclerosis (and in most other autoimmune diseases) is missing. Much of this book is about clinical trials in a difficult field. The trials suffer from a lack of predictive, surrogate markers of intermediate to long-term outcomes, as well as from a paucity of practical measures of effectiveness, with magnetic resonance imaging a difficult but irreplaceable tool. The author excels at illustrating these points and at emphasizing the need for proper controls, questions, and answers that can be interpreted with confidence in such trials. The title, Curing MS, is bold and misleading, but the author himself corrects the misconception about the likelihood of cures for this disease in the last chapter. The backbone of the book is the "Weiner list" of 21 hypotheses that describe the author's view of multiple sclerosis as a primary autoimmune disease that, possibly, is caused by unknown infectious episodes. Not all of these hypotheses are uniformly acknowledged in the field, but most are in the mainstream; some, such as a strong focus on cytokines, are somewhat dated, though not inappropriately for what is basically a history of the medicine surrounding multiple sclerosis. This book does not attempt to provide a critical assessment of the status of therapy for the disease -- it really does not explain "how science is solving the mysteries of multiple sclerosis," as the subtitle claims -- but it does provide a realistic look at the field, with its challenges, its origins, and the more recent achievements that have been made with a modicum of therapeutic tools. Shawn Winer, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

From Booklist
It is estimated that more than 400,000 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which affects the nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Moreover, MS--like juvenile diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease--is the number one cause of paralysis in children. No one yet knows what causes the degenerative and progressive malady, but it is believed everyone may have the capability to contract it. Although there have been astounding leaps forward in the creation of treatment options, there is still no cure. Those figures and facts represent but a handful of the topics Harvard neurologist Weiner, founder-director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses in what ends up as a deconstruction of the last 30 years of his own and general MS research and of experience in treating patients with the puzzling disorder. A noted authority and a pretty good writer, Weiner deftly summarizes what is currently known about treatments and the potential for a cure. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Crown (May 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609609009
• ISBN-13: 978-0609609002
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #736,482 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book about science and MS, July 2, 2004

By A Customer

I just finished reading, Curing MS, and truly enjoyed it. I rarely read anything about science and have never taken a biology course, but Weiner made the subject very understandable. One of the best things is the way he would periodically repeat certain facts and concepts so I didn't have to go back and look them up. I felt like I was learning things as I went, and when I got to the chapter on the twenty-one points, I realized that I knew quite a bit. For me, the most interesting part (along with the extraordinarily complex and diverse way that MS manifests itself in individuals) was the discussion of the "business" of medicine -- the intense competition somehow coupled with amazing amounts of cooperation. This is quite a journey Weiner has undertaken and he let's us see both the rewards and the frustrations. Because the book is written from a personal point of view, it gives a human face to medicine that I found both reassuring and moving.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Curing MS , October 16, 2004

By	Marjorie S. Ruder (Lancaster, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After living with MS for eighteen years, I have learned more about the desease I am fighting from reading this book than from any other source of information I have read over the years.

Dr. Weiner's writing style was informative, as well as personal and humane. Dr. Weiner pointed out the reality of the desease yet made the reader aware of progress that has been made in MS research during the last thirty years. His optomistic, yet reality based writing allowed me to enter his personal life , to catch a sense of how driven he is to find the cure for MS.

I encourage anyone who has MS or family and friends of a person with MS to read this book from cover to cover.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book about the science of MS, October 4, 2004

By	SBW (California, USA) - See all my reviews

The book reads like a detective novel, I couldn't put it down and read it in two nights.I read it because my daughter has MS and I learned more about MS from this book than from all my reading on the internet which in the end was very confusing. Dr. Weiner writes in such a clear and easily understandable way and yet does not scrimp on the science. He writes in a warm and accessible manner. Everyone that knows someone with MS and anyone that has an interest in medicine and science should read this book.