It's probably old news, but I just finished reading Montel William's book "Climbing Higher" tonight.

The first printing of the book was in 2004. He had 2 polls done, one was Gallop, can't recall the name of the other offhand, however the Gallop poll result was just under 1 million in the USA with MS alone. Now, of course that's old data, and we're not 100% sure how 'accurate' the findings are etc (I haven't read the Appendix yet, maybe the Gallop results are explained there in more detail), however 1 million + is sounding like a much more accurate number for those with MS than 400,000. That much is for certain.

I'm with Bearygood and how current figures are needed at this time, specifically the point regarding statistics and how much 'attention' is placed on the disease (ie: a number double the old figure is certainly something to raise eyebrows about I'd say!).

It feels like MS is almost as 'common' and 'known' (at least the name and a partial degree of understanding) by the public in my neck of the woods. I'd gander as common here as diabetes (maybe not, but it certainly feels like it sometimes!).