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MYASTHENIA GRAVIS
This is another example of a so-called autoimmune disease that is probably an infection. Aristotle Onassis was an extremely rich man who had enough money to have access to the most famous doctors in the world, yet he died from myasthenia gravis, a potentially curable disease that blocks messages from nerves to muscles so a person eventually becomes too weak to breathe and smothers to death.
Doctors used to think that myasthenia gravis was an autoimmune disease in which a person's immunity is so stupid that it attacks nerve endings, rather than doing its job of killing germs. In this month's journals, a study from Louvain, Belgium shows at last that some cases of myasthenia are caused by hepatitis C, a disease that can be cured with interferon, histamines and ribaviron.
S Eddy, R Wim, V Peter, R Tanja, T Jan, V Werner. Myasthenia gravis - Another autoimmune disease associated with
hepatitis C virus infection. Digestive Diseases and Sciences 44: 1 (JAN 1999), 186-189
Checked 8/9/05