ABSTRACT
Thursday, June 5, 1997. ‘With all these uncertainties about the therapeutic effect of interferon beta I can not prevent from feeling like a potential guinea-pig.’ These are the words of a multiple sclerosis patient attending the meeting ‘Choosing for interferon?’. The scene of action: the ‘Doctor Soer’ auditorium of ‘Sunny Home’ somewhere in the Netherlands. At the right-hand side of the entrance is a provisional podium flanked by two big billboards with promotion posters of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society. The slogan ‘Diagnosis MS, what next?’ immediately strikes the eye. 1
The local meeting is organized by the Dutch MS Society as part of a national government-sponsored campaign to inform MS patients of the pro’s and con’s of treating MS with the newly registered therapeutic drug, interferon beta. Among those present are MS patients in various stages of the disease-from experienced wheelchair individuals, to less disabled ‘stick’ people, to the seemingly healthy group of ‘greenies’ who are still in the early stages of the disease. They are accompanied by their relatives and friends. In one way or another all are trying to cope with a chronic degenerative nervous disease for which there is no effective treatment available yet, other than a few drugs that provide symptomatic relief.
