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progressive MS has impacted Us in every
way possible my wife Jean was diagnosed
with secondary progressive MS and in a
very short period of time she became
quadriplegic the future is not bright
it's a progressive illness Progressive
it's degenerative
when it comes to Ms it is something I've
always known in my life there has never
been a day when multiple sclerosis
wasn't taking something away from
someone I loved she became nonverbal she
suffered cognitive decline she receives
all her nutrition through a feeding tube
my father was diagnosed before I was
born and his uh Ms progressed very rapid
rapidly and then he passed away when I
was
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young well the progressive MS Alliance
has become an amazing force in the world
to know that there's a body worldwide
body working towards getting a cure or
just working on progressive MS you feel
like there's someone working with you
it's not you know you're not alone well
well the alliance has to accomplish uh a
an effective treatment for progressive
MS it's quite a lonely disease because
firstly no one knows why it occurs um
there is no cure I I think focusing
people's minds and bringing together the
societies bringing together clinical
academics to focus on the area is
another really good achievement it first
represented hope to me and now it's
demonstrating progress
the goal of this network is to develop a
new MRI uh outcome measure that can be
used in Phase 2 clinical
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trials if we're successful it'll be
possible to do um much shorter smaller
less expensive trials to see if drugs
have the potential to work or not it's
the first time in my experience that
actually the first time in the global Ms
movements
experience that organizations have
agreed together to fund research but
also to decide on Research together and
it's by having a clear focus and
priorities and bringing the resource and
the funding together that we believe we
will be able to make much quicker
progress together than we could ever
make a part
I'd like potential donors to know that
this is for real that we are doing
something that has never been done
before and we are tackling the most
important problem in Ms and that the
people that are involved in the
Progressive Alliance have the ability to
deliver but they need their support to
do so first of all we can all make a
gift no matter how big or how small it
all matters it all contributes it all
all makes it move
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faster what I want most for the future
is for this story to have a happy ending
so that other families will never have
to experience what we've gone through
the future where we talk about
progressive MS in the past tense
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