Multiple sclerosis drug brings lethal risks, but great promise for someBy John Fauber
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MILWAUKEE - Eric Schmitt munches on a roast beef sandwich as an IV hooked up to his arm drips a precious but potentially lethal fluid into his vein.
Schmitt, 35, knows there is a slight chance the new drug might kill him, but without it his multiple sclerosis could flare up, bringing back the lack of feeling in his lower body, vision problems and difficulty walking.
"I didn't have much choice," he says.
Krista Chapman wakes up worried at 3 a.m. on the day of her first treatment.
After a horrible year of MS relapses in 2006, she reckons that the same drug, Tysabri, will reduce the odds of another setback from which she might not recover, sparing her from disorienting vertigo and overpowering fatigue.
But it also could cause a fatal viral infection in her brain. And at 37, she is too young to die, even though the odds of that seem slim.
As the drug, which costs several thousand dollars a month, slowly is infused into the back of her hand, she seems relaxed sitting up in her hospital bed.
For Schmitt and Chapman as well as an untold number of other MS patients, Tysabri has created a dilemma found with few other medications that treat disabling, but rarely fatal, diseases such as MS...[MORE].