When Cells Refuse to Listen: A New Dawn for Multiple Sclerosis Treatment

By the time the infusion drips into the vein, it feels like a prayer. Some patients leave lighter, steadier, with symptoms subdued. Others leave unchanged. For a few, the drug becomes a dangerous gamble. Until recently, no one could tell in advance which story their body would write.

A Morning in Ceará

The waiting room in Fortaleza was painted in a fading shade of green, the kind chosen not for beauty but endurance. Plastic chairs lined the walls, each holding a story heavy with fatigue, tremors, blurred vision.

Beatriz Chaves sat across from a young mother whose hands trembled as she buttoned her child’s coat. Multiple sclerosis (MS) had crept into her life like an invisible saboteur, dismantling certainty one muscle at a time.

Beatriz, then a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Ceará, had seen these stories multiply. Each patient different, yet united by one tormenting question:

“Will this drug work for me?”

Natalizumab — a monoclonal antibody hailed as a modern triumph — was their best chance. For many, it worked like magic. For others, it failed silently, betraying hope. For a few, it unleashed new dangers.