HOPES that multiple sclerosis, a devastating neurological disease with no cure, could be treated with antibiotics are fading. Last summer, researchers announced that they had found a bacterium, Chlamydia pneumoniae, in the spinal fluid of most MS patients, raising hopes of a treatment.
But now Margaret Hammerschlag, who runs the Chlamydia Research Laboratory at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, has failed to find any trace of the bacterium in the spinal fluid of 48 MS patients and 51 healthy controls (Neurology, vol 54, p 265). Hammerschlag says that the lack of standardised laboratory tests for the bacterium can lead to variable results. 鈥淚鈥檝e had extensive experience with this鈥攚e do hundreds of cultures a month,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to really be careful.鈥�