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Article: LEPROSY BUG: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE DEMYELINATION IS MYCOBACTERIUM LEPRAE'S NERVE KILLER IN INFECTIOUS AND NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- May 3, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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1. Leprosy is a bacterial infection marked by nerve damage.
2. The cause of that neuronal mayhem is a too-vigorous immune response.
3. Ergo, treatment of leprosy patients is largely based on bridling their immune system.
This medical syllogism is neat, plausible and wrong - at least in critical part. So reports microbiologist/cell biologist Anura Rambukkana in today's Science, dated May 3, 2002.
"That nerve damage," he told BioWorld Today, "previously thought to be a byproduct of the immune system's reaction to the leprosy bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae, we find to be a direct result of the leprosy bug attaching itself to ...