Last week saw the publication of two news-grabbing immunological studies. Both had an important story to tell. Both involved politics as well as science. Both require comment.

The first study, carried out by cancer researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, and published simultaneously in Science Translational Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine, involved an exciting new approach to the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

A harmless form of the AIDS virus was used to insert novel genes into the DNA of specialized human immune cells (called “cytotoxic, or killer T cells”) in the test tube. The genetically-altered T cells were then injected back into the patient’s bloodstream; armed with new proteins produced by the incorporated viral genes, they now had the “right stuff” to hone in and kill CLL cells; one of the viral genes also produced a chemical signal that, when secreted into the blood and tissues, recruited hoards of other long-acting, CLL-killing, T cells.

The result? A massive, sustained, pin-point immune attack that, for the first time in medical history, may have eradicated CLL in two of three patients with advanced disease (the third has improved significantly, but leukemia cells are still present in the blood and bone marrow).

Many experts quickly noted that, while very promising, only three patients have been treated so far. Would the results be as impressive in 100 patients? Moreover, how long will the disease remain in remission in the two complete responders? And what are the long-term effects of this treatment on the body in general and on the immune system in particular?

All good questions but, when a new treatment sends out such a strong signal on the first try, it is hard not to get excited. After all, Fleming immediately sensed a good thing when bacteria failed to grow in a petri dish contaminated by a mould called penicillium; Banting and Best knew they were likely on to something big when a substance (insulin) they derived from pancreatic extracts saved the life of a diabetic dog in the laboratory.

Yet, (and here is where politics enters the story) the three leukemia patients who have benefited so dramatically, owe their lives not only to the brilliant doctors and scientists who developed this new treatment, but also to a pair of philanthropists and community activists, Barbara Netter, and her late husband, Edward.

In 2001, following the death from breast cancer of their daughter-in-law, Kimberly, the Netters co-founded a scientific charitable foundation, called the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT). “We have never wavered from our belief that molecular medicine is the new paradigm to treat cancer and that the source of cancer ...the genes...is where research should be focused,” Mr. and Mrs. Netter explained on the ACGT Foundation’s website.

As it turns out, Dr. Carl June, lead investigator of the leukemia study, and a member of ACGT’s Scientific Advisory Council, was unable to convince the U.S. National Cancer Institute or the pharmaceutical industry to fund his “outside the box” clinical trial. As reported by NBC’s Robert Bazell, he then turned to Mrs. Netter, who made sure that ACGT did. Without that charitable seed money, those first three patients would never have been treated!

Now that the T cell therapy has, as Dr. June stated, "worked much better than we thought it would,” federal and drug company money is likely to follow. In the politics of science, as in life, sometimes it is who you know rather than what you know. In this case, the political players were noble, involved in a good cause!

Sadly, the same can’t be said for the politics of the second study, published in Nature, reporting important new genetic findings in multiple sclerosis.

An international research consortium of 250 scientists, led by Cambridge University’s Professor Alastair Compston, has discovered  that, in addition to 23 previously-identified “genetic variants,” an additional 29 variants, most of them linked to the control of T cell immune function, are common to patients with MS but not to healthy subjects. One-third of the newly-discovered variant genes are also linked to autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease.

Commenting on the findings, Dr. Compston stated that, “the new study reaffirms the long held assertion that MS is primarily an autoimmune disorder and that changes in the immune system set off the disease.” He also took the opportunity to tell the Globe and Mail that [the gene study] “casts aside ‘eccentric and maverick ideas’ that it is caused by venous abnormalities…One can say that this provides absolutely no support whatsoever for that [blocked veins] idea.”

Yale University’s head of neurology, Dr. David Haffler, who participated in Compston’s study, went even further, saying that he “hopes the new research can help quell ‘hysteria’ surrounding the theory MS is caused by blocked neck veins….it is ‘shameful’ that so much attention and investment is being placed on an idea that is simply not true in light of findings about the immunological roots of the disease.”

Why two such eminent researchers would be so narrow-minded as to denigrate a perfectly valid alternate hypothesis, that blocked neck or chest veins (CCSVI) could be the primary trigger of, or at least contribute to, the neurodegenerative/autoimmune process called MS, in individuals whose DNA might contain the very “genetic variants” that they themselves have identified, is hard for me to understand, let alone tolerate. To me, their statements do not represent an unbiased scientific conclusion. Rather, they appear to be playing an ignoble kind of politics, intolerant of anyone with a competing idea.

Happily, serious CCSVI  research continues. The findings of seven MS Society-funded Canadian and U.S. research groups, and the start of early-stage clinical trials, are expected within the next one to two years. In the meantime, a second small study of “liberation therapy” has just been published; while the findings are not definitive, they appear encouraging.

Of one thing I am sure: at the end of the day, cold, hard scientific facts, and not emotional polemics, will give us the verdict as  to whether venous obstruction is an important factor in the etiology of MS.