Dr. Ben Greenberg investigating mysterious illness that causes paralysis in children
Dr. Ben Greenberg
Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, an expert on rare forms of paralysis, is at the forefront of trying to figure out how and why a mysterious flu-like illness is causing paralysis in children.
One of his patients is a four-year-old boy from McKinney, Texas, who lost the ability to walk after having a sore throat and fever in the summer of 2014. As early as 2013, Dr. Greenberg noticed that a small but growing group of patients presented with limbs that were floppy — not stiff as in many cases of paralysis — and MRI scans of their spines that showed a distinct pattern.
The Centers for Disease Control has named the illness acute flaccid myelitis but its exact cause is not known. Dr. Greenberg suspects the virus called D68 in many of the cases.