More independent evidence for CCSVI - Wow!

It looks this this Australian research (as reported by a contributor to TiMS) would point to MS as NOT being (in the first instance) an auto-immune disease because myelin cells are being killed off BEFORE there is an immune system reaction.

Investigators at the University of Sydney have published a study suggesting that the earliest activity seen in the brain in MS is the destruction of cells that make myelin (oligodendrocytes), occurring before the onset of immune activity usually blamed for triggering the disease. This provocative study, co-funded by many sources including the National MS Society, opens up new possibilities for finding the cause of the disease and developing new treatments.

Current Study: For this study, the team used brain specimens from 11 people who had died early in the course of their MS, and the team also used comparison specimens from people with other disorders including stroke. Some of the tests focused on subsets of specimens from seven people who had lesions showing active myelin destruction. To get a sense of immune cell activity in the brain and at what stage it was occurring, the team examined newly active and resolved lesions, as well as nearby blood vessels, surrounding areas showing some disease activity and surrounding areas that appeared normal, and areas that were farther away from the lesions of interest.

Results: In tissues surrounding newly forming lesions, the investigators found evidence of the loss of oligodendrocytes with an absence of immune T or B cells that would normally be held responsible for launching the immune attack against oligodendrocytes and the myelin they produce. These and other immune cells, including scavenger cells (macrophages and microglia), were more numerous in lesions and surrounding tissues at apparently later stages of destruction and sometimes in lesions that were in the process of repair. In specimens from two very early cases of clinical onset of disease, they found few immune cells within the lesions and no evidence of activation of scavenger cells.

These and other unexpected findings from this study led the investigators to propose that the early immune activity seen in active lesions is that of macrophages and microglia, whose job it is to clean up and remove damaged myelin. They propose that lesion formation is caused by something other than destructive immune activity led by inflammatory cells against a component of myelin or oligodendrocytes.

Do i hear CCSVI in between those lines. What am thinking is that the buildup of iron, which is quite poisonous to the oligodendrocytes, causes them to die, hence lesions forming. It is then the the scavenger cells (microglia and macrophages) come in to cleanup the dead cell matter. Yes there's still a T-cell component as iron buildup will promote inflammation but probably even more damage is done by just the iron buildup.

What do you guys think?

I got this at: http://www.nationalmssociety.org/research/research-news/news-detail/index.aspx?nid=2622

This would support the idea that MS is primarily a vascular disease that causes the build-up of iron, which in turn destroys myelin (and brain cells).  Immune cells attacking our own bodies may have little to do with it, or are a secondary (or should I say tertiary) phase of disease.  Wow!