Why is MS research so difficult?
MS seems to be an inherently difficult disease to research. MS is so variable between different people that there don’t seem to be common patterns that would provide a starting place for research. All of the most likely factors in MS development such as diet, environment, infectious agents, genetics, etc. have been looked at with only confusing and contradictory results. MS is also variable within one person which makes trying to assess the effects of possible treatments difficult. Which brings us to the next point: • What is a double-blind placebo controlled trial and why is it so important? In attempting to examine the validity of any treatment for any problem, there are two well known effects that confound the assessment. The “placebo effect” is a real phenomenum in which a patient will subjectively feel better and may even perform better on tests when he or she thinks that he or she is being treated by an authority figure. Another problem is that the researcher doing the trial real
