Evidence that Multiple Sclerosis is an Infectious Disease

1. Spirochetes have been documented in MS pathology specimens.
   
   
2. Spirochetal flagellin (the tail of Borrelia burgdorferi that allow it to move through the body) is immunologically very similar to human myelin.
   
   
3. The demyelination process in MS and Lyme disease is also similar; they both can cause inflammation in the eye and in the spinal cord, leading to a loss of vision and difficulty walking, making it difficult to differentiate between the two diseases clinically.
   
   
4. If a physician were to do a spinal tap trying to differentiate multiple sclerosis from neurological Lyme disease, they would find extremely similar results. As with multiple sclerosis infection, central nervous system infection with B. burgdorferi can cause an increased protein synthesis with IgG antibodies, lymphocytic pleocystosis (increased lymphocytes in the spinal fluid), increased protein, increased plasma cells, and oligoclonal bands. Lyme that affects the central nervous system can produce both oligoclonal bands that react with B. burgdorferi and ones that do not.
   
   
5. We find some of the cystic structures of Lyme disease in the central nervous system of patients with MS. The cyst forms are one of the means by which Borrelia burgdorferi can persist in the body for extended periods of time, under extremely adverse conditions, and reactivate into normal mobile spirochetes when the conditions are right. Perhaps certain environmental factors (ie. low vitamin D) or co-infections with other organisms, such as Chlamydia are responsible for Borrelia coming out of hiding and reactivating the cysts, driving demyelination and MS-type symptoms in certain patients.
   
   

One of the mysteries that has challenged my medical practice is that as more and more patients come for help, a large number present with symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Those coming for help said that the traditional medical establishment had failed to provide them with answers for their illnesses. Why is this the case?

Patients with multiple sclerosis infection often complain of intermittent tingling and numbness in different parts of their bodies, and MRIs of their brains can show varying amounts of white spots. Both of these symptoms and findings are seen in both Lyme disease and MS, and since some patients have negative serum Lyme ELISAs, they are often told by neurologists that they have MS and are given the ABC regimen, or Rebif. If these drugs don’t help, patients are told that they must have “relapsing remitting” form of the disease, in which the symptoms come and go, or a chronic, progressive form, and are told to remain on these drugs to stabilize their symptoms. However, just as with the patients diagnosed with lupus or with rheumatoid arthritis, the drugs may not help relieve their symptoms, or even if they do, we may be treating symptoms and not getting to the true, underlying cause of the disease process.

What is the link between Lyme disease and MS? Do Lyme disease and/or co-infections somehow provoke the MS autoimmune reaction, just as it can do with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other inflammatory disorders? Dr. Stephen Phillips, past president of ILADS, has presented evidence at scientific conferences that there is an association between MS and Lyme disease. He also reported treating an abnormally high number of MS patients in his Lyme practice. Years earlier, Dr. Patricia Coyle of SUNY- Stony Brook presented research on how to differentiate between MS and Lyme at a Lyme Disease Foundation conference. Her work focused on the following:

•  Both cause optic neuritis, inflammation of the optic nerve, and blindness.
•  Both cause white spots or demyelinating lesions visible on an MRI scan of the brain.
•  Both could cause paresthesias -tingling and numbness of the extremities.
•  Both can cause bladder dysfunction.
•  Both have relapsing, remitting nature.
•  Both diseases can cause elevations of myelin basic protein (MBP) and oligoclonal bands (immunoglobulins) to appear in the spinal fluid.
  
  

The primary difference between the two diseases seemed to be that with MS there were more white matter lesions on an MRI and higher amounts of myelin basic protein and oligoclonal bands present on the spinal tap. Moreover, Lyme disease did not usually cause demyelinating lesions in the cervical or thoracic spine. So there were some differences, but the boundaries between the two diseases are easily blurred, and one disease could certainly be mistaken for the other.”

“Since spirochetes are the cause of neurodegenerative diseases in syphilis, could it be that the spirochetal infection in Lyme disease is partly or wholly responsible for some of the neurologic degenerative diseases we face in this century – Alzheimer’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS). Those are named conditions for which no cause is known.”

“We never had…in the last five years a single MS patient…who did not test positive for Borrelia burgdorferi. Not a single one.”

Dr. MacDonald explains one of the ways Borrelia is introduced into the central nervous system of MS patients in the following quote:

“It’s like a Trojan horse – the worm itself is an assault on the body and the Borrelia inside the worm, when they are released also assault the body and cause tissue injury. The two have a holy alliance and cause multiple sclerosis and other conditions of the brain.”

Why is this not studied more:

Quote from Dr. Alan MacDonald:

“Spinal fluid was not examined in animal autopsies or in human autopsies until 2016 by the Duray foundation – began its MS spinal fluid incentive.”

1911 Buzzard Spirochetes in MS Lancet

1913 Bullock MS Agent in Rabbits Lancet

1917 Steiner Spirochetes The Cause of MS Med Kiln

1918 Simmering Spirochetes in MS by Darkfield Micro

1918 Steiner G. Guinea Pig Inoculation with MS infectious agent from Human

1919 Steiner MS Agent Inoculation into Monkeys

1921 Gye F. MS Agent In Rabbits Brain 14:213

1922 Kaberlah MS Agent In Rabbits Deutch Med Works

1922 Sicard MS Spirochetes in Animal Model Rev Neurol

1922 Stepanopoulo Spirochetes in the CSF of MS Patients

1923 Shhlossman MS Agent in Animal Model Rev Neuro

1924 Blacklock MS Agent in Animals J. of Path and Bac

1927 Wilson The Rat as A Carrier of MS British Med Journal

1927 Steiner G Understanding the Pathogenesis of MS

1928 Steiner Spirochetes in the Human Brain of MS Patients

1932 Rogers, Helen J. The question of silver cells as proof of the spirochetal theory of disseminated sclerosis. J. Neurol and Psychopathol. 13:50, 1932

1933 Simons Spirochetes in the CSF of MS Patients

1939 Hassin Spirochete-like formations in MS

1948 Adams Spirochetes within the Ventricle Fluid of Monkeys Inoculated from Human MS

1952 Steiner Acute Plaques in MS and The Pathogenic Role of Spirochetes as the Etiological Factor Journal of Neuropathology and Exp Med 11: No 4:343

1954 Steiner Morphology of Spirochaeta Myelophthora (Myelin Loving) In MS Journal of Neuropathology and Exp Neurol 11:4 343 1954

1954 Steiner G. Acute plaques in M.S., their pathogenetic significance and the role of spirochetes as the etiological factor. J. Neuropath. and Exp. Neur. 11:no 4:343, 1954

1957 Ichelson R. Cultivation of Spirochetes from Spinal Fluids of MS Cases with Negative Controls Procl. Soc. Exp. Biol Med 70:411 1957

1986 Gay D Dick G Is multiple sclerosis caused by an oral spirochaete? Lancet (1986 Jul 12) 2(8498):75-7

1988 Marshall V Multiple sclerosis is a chronic central nervous system infection (Multiple Sclerosis infection) by a spirochetal agent. Med Hypotheses (1988 Feb) 25(2):89-92

1986 (USA): Relapsing fever/Lyme disease – Multiple sclerosis. Medical Hypotheses, volume 21, issue 3, pages 335-343

2000 (Poland): Lyme borreliosis and Multiple sclerosis: Any Connection? A Seroepidemic study. Ann Agric Environ Med. issue 7, 141-143

2001 (Norway): Association between Multiple sclerosis and Cystic Structures in Cerebrospinal Fluid. Infect 29:315

2004 (Switzerland): Chronic Lyme borreliosis at the root of Multiple sclerosis – is a cure with antibiotics attainable?

2009 (Romania): Controversies in late Neuroborreliosis and Multiple sclerosis – case series

If you follow the European Medical Literature concerning Multiple Sclerosis from 1911 to 1939, you find that in France, Germany and England, there were independent researchers all observing similar things and coming to similar conclusions:

1) “Spirochetes are often found in conjunction with the lesions in the brains of patients who have died with MS.

2) These spirochetes can be isolated and can infect many mammalian animal models; including: mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs, and primates.

3) The spirochetes could be re-isolated from the brains of the infected animals and be inoculated into more un-infected animals and re-isolated from their brains.”

“Cultures on anaerobic medium were made of the spinal fluids of 27 patients with multiple sclerosis and 13 controls after the method described recently by Ichelson. Where Ichelson found organisms resembling spirochetes in 78 per cent of patients with multiple sclerosis, we found some form of what appeared to be a living micro-organism in 18.5 per cent. The control fluids were all sterile. The work requires confirmation and amplification.”

“Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic central nervous system (CNS) infection similar to Lyme Disease or Neurosyphilis in its latency period, pathogenesis, symptoms, histopathology and chronic CNS involvement. It does not have as yet a fully identified spirochetal etiological agent. Much research and clinical support for this hypothesis was published before 1954 and is based on silver staining of neural lesions, animal isolation of the etiologic agent and the characteristic symptoms and pathogenesis of the disease. If this hypothesis is correct, the disease should be treatable with antibacterial agents that penetrate the CNS (such as high dose antibiotics), diagnosible by specific immunological tests, and preventable by early treatment or by the use of vaccines in high risk populations.”

“A total of 769 adult neurological patients hospitalized in clinics and hospitals situated in the Lublin region (eastern Poland) were examined during the years 1997-2000 with ELISA test for the presence of anti-Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato antibodies. A statististically significant (p=0.0422) relationship was found between the clinically confirmed diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and the positive serologic reaction with Borrelia antigen. Ten out 26 patients with multiple sclerosis (38.5%) showed positive serologic reaction to Borrelia, whereas among the total number of examined neurological patients the frequency of positive findings was twice as low (19.4%). The result suggests that multiple sclerosis may be often associated with Borrelia infection.”

“… Worldwide, MS prevalence parallels the distribution of the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia (B.) burgdorferi, and in America and Europe, the birth excesses of those individuals who later in life develop MS exactly mirror the seasonal distributions of Borrelia transmitting Ixodes ticks. In addition to known acute infections, no other disease exhibits equally marked epidemiological clusters by season and locality, nurturing the hope that prevention might ultimately be attainable. As minocycline, tinidazole and hydroxychloroquine are reportedly capable of destroying both the spirochaetal and cystic L-form of B. burgdorferi found in MS brains, there emerges also new hope for those already afflicted.”

“Lyme disease is one of the most frequent infections in the Russian Federation. In patients with multiple sclerosis, the Borrelia infection may act as a trigger in some cases and also worsens the clinical course of multiple sclerosis. One hundred patients with definite multiple sclerosis were examined including 19 patients with the combination of multiple sclerosis and Lyme disease. The difficulties of diagnosis, clinical features and treatment of Lyme disease in patients with multiple sclerosis are discussed.”