Falling down the biological rabbit hole: Epstein-Barr virus, biography, and multiple sclerosis
Ralph I. Horwitz, Allison Hayes‐Conroy, Burton H. Singer, Mark R. Cullen, Kimberly Badal, Ida Sim
Abstract
A recent research report in Science by Bjornevik et al. tested the hypothesis that multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort of more than ten million adults on active duty in the US military during a 20-year period (1993–2013) (1). The authors reported that individuals who had prior EBV infection were 24 times more likely to develop MS than noninfected persons. The findings appear to confirm a longstanding suspicion linking EBV to MS and led many to call for an EBV vaccine to prevent MS. A closer examination of the article, however, indicates the analysis was incomplete and misrepresents the data. In fact, a strong association between EBV and MS was present only for those with recent infection occurring during active-duty military service.