Multiple Sclerosis

Here is the tally for two men on the world's longest contiguous bike ride: 6,000 miles behind them, 24 days of pouring rain, six tire blowouts. And 10,000 miles to go. (Add to the tally: one caribou herd sighting, one badly scraped elbow, one 3-inch leg gash.) Boston-area cyclists Spike Ramsden, 31, and Wayne Ross, 30, spent the night at a friend's house in Newport Beach on Wednesday on their "Cycle the Americas for Multiple Sclerosis" fund-raising trip through 14 countries.

A county medical official said Tuesday that a woman who died in Jack Kevorkian's latest assisted-suicide case was in no danger of an early death from multiple sclerosis. "The heart and lungs were like the ones of a teenage person," said L. J. Dragovic, the Oakland County medical examiner. Linda Henslee, 48, died Monday from carbon monoxide poisoning, said the medical examiner's office, which ruled her death a homicide.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian took part in suicide No. 27, that of a 48-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis whose bathrobe-clad body was found in Kevorkian's battered van outside the coroner's office Monday. Linda Henslee, 48, a former computer engineer from Beloit, Wis., died of carbon monoxide poisoning, Medical Examiner L.J. Dragovic said. "There's no observation of dignity to have the body of a woman dropped off at the morgue at 6 in the morning on a freezing day.

An experimental vaccine enabled some multiple sclerosis patients to build up a police squad of blood cells to stop vandalism in their nervous systems, and that kept sufferers from getting sicker, a study found. Scientists tested the vaccine against a kind of MS that gets progressively worse over months or years. None of the six patients who built up police-like cells in the blood got worse during the yearlong study, while 10 of 17 other patients did.

A new drug to help treat multiple sclerosis won unanimous backing from a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel. The panel recommended the approval of Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.'s Copaxone drug. If approved, this would be the third drug available in the United States to treat the disease, for which there is no cure. The disease can be mild or it can cause successive flare-ups, each causing more deterioration of movement, speech and basic bodily functions.

The first drug to slow the progression of multiple sclerosis has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but the maker of a competing medicine plans to ask a court to block its introduction. The FDA announced Friday that it will permit marketing of Avonex for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis. Avonex, made by Biogen Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., is the second approved MS drug that is based on interferon, one of the proteins produced by the immune system.

When golf enthusiast Sandi Coffer felt the first symptoms of her illness, she was steadying her club for a solid shot to the green. Suddenly, she lost vision in her right eye. Her sight returned, and doctors were at a loss to explain what had caused her temporary partial blindness. A few years later, however, Coffer woke from an afternoon nap and could not move the entire right side of her body. After that episode, multiple sclerosis was diagnosed.

Multiple sclerosis patients may soon have a new drug that is nearly as effective as the recently approved beta-interferon but has far fewer side effects. Preliminary results from a clinical trial show that the drug, called copolymer one, reduces flare-ups of the disabling disease by nearly one-third, the drug's discoverer said Sunday at an MS symposium at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The first drug to slow the progression of multiple sclerosis instead of just treating its symptoms moved a step closer to market Monday. Scientific advisors unanimously urged the Food and Drug Administration to approve Biogen Inc.'s injectable drug Avonex to treat the incurable neurological disease. The recommendation was based on a study showing Avonex reduced MS progression by 37%. But the panel warned that no one yet knows how long Avonex works or what is the best dose.

A new program has been set up to help uninsured and low-income people receive accurate diagnosis for multiple sclerosis. The Multiple Sclerosis Assn. of America will pay for magnetic resonance imaging exams for qualified patients. The MRI exam, which can detect brain lesions caused by multiple sclerosis, usually costs $400 to $750. Application forms for free exams are available by calling (800) 833-4672. Completed forms must be submitted to the association by the patient's neurologist.