Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease; the body produces antibodies that attack and eventually destroy parts of the myelin sheath covering our nerves. The cause of MS, like HUS 40 years ago, is unknown, though it's thought to be a combination of genetics and environmental influences. Going through the literature, it seems like almost everything has been implicated as playing a causal role at one point or another: pesticides, environmental mercury, hormones, various other "toxins," and a whole host of microbes, including Chlamydia pneumoniae, measles, mumps, Epstein-Barr virus, varicella zoster (chickenpox), herpes simplex viruses, other herpes families viruses (HHV-6 and HHV-8), even canine distemper virus. They've done this looking at both microbe culture (from blood, brain tissue, CNS, etc.) as well as using serology and DNA/RNA amplification in various body sites. None have shown any strong, repeatable links to the development of MS--much like the spurious associations that were seen with adenovirus and HUS.What I find interesting is that TMEV is from the picornavirus family, the same family to which enteroviruses belong. So if an picornavirus can cause MS (albeit in a mouse model of the disease), I think it is possible that enteroviruses could cause ME/CFS. After all, ME/CFS has been called at times "atypical MS" and some suspected outbreaks of MS (like Punta Gorda in Florida) might have been ME/CFS outbreaks.
Although no microbial agent has been convincingly implicated to date, there are tantalizing hints that MS is caused by an infectious agent. There have been "outbreaks" of MS; the most famous occurred in the Faroe Islands in the 1940s. Studies of migrants show that the risks of developing MS seem to be tied to exposures in childhood, suggesting a possible exposure to an infectious agent as a kid. And one of the most common mouse models used to study MS has the disease induced by infection with a virus called Theiler's murine encephalitis virus (TMEV). If it can happen in mice, why not humans?
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