Review of Transfer Factor for MS

Recently, I completed a review of descriptions of Transfer Factor. Here's my summary:

Resources Reviewed:
1. Two NIH papers on clinical trials:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1537193

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3555898


2. Sites calling this a “quack”:

http://briandeer.com/wakefield/transfer-factor.htm

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ms.html

3. The 4life site - http://www.transferfactorinstitute.com

4. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer institute site - http://www.mskcc.org

Based on the above readings, we currently don’t have enough information to call it effective for Multiple Sclerosis. The clinical trials (involving blindfold recipients) published with transfer factor alone or in conjunction with interferon-beta showed no difference from the untreated group. Thus the positive aspect of these trials is that no side effects of transfer factor were noted in the participants. In other words, they report that patients were not harmed by taking this drug during the trials.

In fact, if you read the Sloan- Kettering Cancer Institute site, it claims that transfer factor is not effective against many other autoimmune disorders including MS whereas they did term it effective against some immune disorders. Moreover, I could not find any international paper published describing the mode of functioning ("how it works") of Transfer Factor on the internet. Hence how this factor will modulate the immune problem in MS is questionable based on the above. I have not come across any new report on transfer factor and MS on the internet.

It is possible that the above conclusions can change with new data.

Ultimately, as always, the decision of taking this medicine lies with the person and her doctor.