From Helena Hart
There must be realistic doubt about how many diseases we are dealing with under the label “multiple sclerosis” (16 November, p 12). Professor Hans Lassman of the University of Vienna suggests there are possibly four different MS subgroups and concludes: “Therapies must be tailored towards the needs of specific patient subgroups.”
Unless we sensibly identify MS subgroups based on tests that reflect this complexity, we are as likely to get it wrong in the future as in the past. I plead from my position as both an MS patient and a scientist: please do not flatten MS to a single model, and please stop using animal model experiments as an excuse for not investigating human MS subgroups.
Edinburgh, UK
