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ABOUT five years ago, Craig Wheeler was heading for a nursing home. Multiple sclerosis had paralysed his legs and was stealing his sight in cruel five-minute bursts.

The original article can be found at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/lifestyle-change-helps-keep-multiple-sclerosis-at-bay-20120318-1vdle.html

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This is a relatively well balanced story about an alternative therapeutic intervention for multiple sclerosis. The story makes good use of independent experts and is very clear that there is no rigorous scientific evidence to back the intervention. MS is a disease in which periods of spontaneous remission are common, so uncontrolled trials of any type of intervention are of little value, and the promoter of this intervention more or less concedes this. His theory as to how it might work is also, by his own admission, highly speculative and not grounded in experimental evidence.

Missing from the story are important aspects including the cost especially in comparison to mainstream treatments, and a quantitative measure of benefits and harms of the intervention. Considering the positive patient story, it might have been fair to describe the recent controversy surrounding the Gawler Foundation.

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