"Scientists hail autoimmune breakthrough" - the Guardian

[Sid]

Having waded through the whole paper now, I don’t see any wrong ideas in it such as T cell driven autoimmunity. Regarding citations or lack thereof, that’s always driven by politics.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Having waded through the whole paper now, I don’t see any wrong ideas in it such as T cell driven autoimmunity.

No, I agree. It is just that 95% of people in the field still seem to have a belief in mysterious auto reactive T cells driving the autoantibodies and that is what you are likely to find in their relevant references apart from ours of course. And talking of a 'more widespread correction of autoimmunity' in mysterious terms seems a bit coy when they could refer to our Nature Reviews Immunology article which spells out exactly how that ought to work - but in the sense that there is nothing more to be done!

 

[Amw66]

Uh, would you look at that. You treat the disease, you treat the symptoms. No need for biopsychomumbojumbo. In fact it appears that the symptoms are... *drum roll*... consequences of the disease. Who knew?

Be good for someone to highlight any BPS nonsense for lupus

 

[Sid]

Seroconversion is fairly easy for anti-DNA but more difficult for other ANA. Their figures look fairly similar to what we are used to. But yes, this is what we predicted in our 1998 paper before we actually started using B cell depletion - that abrogating autoimmune clones would get rid of the problem. In fact if one didn't think that the treatment would look fairly poor risk/benefit.

Have you had a chance to check out Fig 3? The patient with elevated anti-Ro antibody, it barely declined with treatment, and they still had quite elevated levels of fatigue after 3 months. Bad news for Sjogren’s?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Have you had a chance to check out Fig 3? The patient with elevated anti-Ro antibody, it barely declined with treatment, and they still had quite elevated levels of fatigue after 3 months. Bad news for Sjogren’s?

It is as we found it - slow to fall if at all, although those with lower levels did get a drop.
I am not sure this is interpretable at 3 months though. If pathogenic clones of B cells are destroyed there may be no long term replenishment of anti-Ro from cycling new B cell clones. The crucial thing is what happens from a year onwards, when any re-engagement of a cycle has had a chance to occur.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

No need for biopsychomumbojumbo.

Are you denying that mumbo and jumbo factors are contributory factors in all illness? Simon is not happy.

 

[rvallee]

Are you denying that mumbo and jumbo factors are contributory factors in all illness? Simon is not happy.
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I have to say, there are very good chances that I adopt biopsychomumbojumbo from now on. It really rolls perfectly on the mind tongue. Sometimes words just align perfectly, even made-up ones. Although to be fair, all words are made-up.