For more than two decades, I’ve lived with two autoimmune diseases: multiple sclerosis (MS) and autoimmune thyroiditis. And I’m not alone. A recent study by the Mayo Clinic estimated that about 15 million Americans (around 4.6% of the population) have at least one or more autoimmune disease.
When symptoms like crushing weakness, shattering pain and nocturnal body jerks began just after my 21st birthday, my life was altered permanently. Without a fully functioning immune system, each time I venture into populated spaces, I risk contracting an infectious disease that my body doesn’t have the strength to fight off. Every day, I worry about my children bringing home a virus from school that could send me to the hospital. And each time I receive my MS infusion, I worry about the increased risk of cancer that comes with it. The discovery of new treatment options that don’t suppress the immune system would allow me to live without these fears.
In 2020 — after three years of immunosuppression — when I learned of mRNA vaccine research for MS, I was relieved. At that point, I was living through the pandemic on a B-cell-depleting medication, rendering me high-risk for COVID-19. My husband, a physician, treated patients for the novel virus, while my children and I lived in a bubble. The mRNA research gave me hope.
Medications using mRNA technology would treat MS with an injection intended to treat autoimmunity without suppressing the entire immune system. For people like me who rely...
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