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Multiple Sclerosis Is Not Contagious or is it?
Even though current research suggests that the MonSter and the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) are related, there isn’t any evidence that MS is contagious. This tidbit of medical trivia should set your mind at ease.
However, the ever-existent worm of worry permeates my guilt-ridden parental brain.
I never had mumps as an adolescent, but my son did. During his senior year in high school, he developed a neurological condition called Miller-Fisher Syndrome. (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24138-miller-fisher-syndrome) Is this the result of my MS diagnosis, which had been lurking in my body before my pregnancy?
People with MS are much more likely than those without the condition to have signs of a previous Epstein-Barr infection, the cause of most cases of mononucleosis, but the exact nature of the connection with MS isn’t clear.
A study published in October 2021 in JAMA Network Open found that people diagnosed with infectious mononucleosis, an acute illness most commonly caused by EBV, during childhood were nearly twice as likely to develop MS, and for people diagnosed during adolescence, the risk of MS was three times higher.
Corboy points out that researchers have failed to transmit multiple sclerosis in a lab to animals for research purposes, so it’s…
