CCSVI and the medical hierarchy

Here's some evidence that explains why the autoimmune theory "won" over the vascular theory as the cause of MS in the 1980s: much of it may have been as much due to the hierarchies in the medical community as due to scientific evidence.  Read the original paper, and then read Joan Beal's summary.  Again, remember that this happened over twenty years ago, so the CCSVI controversy (though it wasn't called CCSVI at the time) is not so new after all.