Carolyn has included some very good reading material on sham surgery and the placebo effect. When I had my experimental surgery, we six KNEW we were getting the real thing. Yes, the placebo effect may have been in play here, but the 68+ volunteers for Phase II are part of the sham process.

I need to make it very clear that I am not trying to get sham surgery stopped - it has been studied scientifically and has been determined to be the only way to show if some t herapies are showing improvement signififcantly. However, the patient has a righth to kknow (via the informed consent process) AND I wonder if any stats have been gathered from all sham surgery trials to compare risks to benefits?

I and the group I volunteer with (Parkinson Pipeline Project) are just asking if this is really the best way to determine efficacy of new treatments.

Peggy

PS - be sure to answer the short survey at the Pipeline website: www.pdpipeline.org