and here's the gist of the first message I sent earlier, the one that got snagged, twice.

Not to be the nay-sayer, but I am not sure Rick is right. Although it does appear that big pharma has no interest in cures, inasmuch as I have not seen one in my lifetime, yet, and that is despite the millions, and billions, of research done, for cancer, AIDS, diabetes, fill in the blank with the "disease" (they even are drugging young children now and migrating them onto a drug-dependent regime for life, unconscionable). And no cure for anything, at least that I know of.

But there will have to be a cure. As more and more people move from being tax-payers to benefits-receivers because of disability (for PD, MS, AIDS, whatever) things will have to change, if only from a pure mathmatical standpoint. Our society is simply not sustainable unless the majority of people in it are paying ample taxes to support it. And I don't see those taxes going down anytime soon, if ever!

As for the point about a connection between a cure for PD and vice, we should keep in mind that the vast majority of gamblers in Vegas (and folks watching the porn in their hotel room) are not compulsive, in that they are able to stop themselves. Thankfully, the vast, vast majority of those same folks also do not have PD. There is much more involved with PD, as researchers are now finally acknowledging, and therefore I don't think a cure for addiction will necessarily equate with a cure for PD. Research from one may help shed insights into the other, but I don't see "one cure fits all" in this case, simply because of the complex nature of PD.

Besides, more and more people are turning away from traditional medicine in favor of alternative treatments that work better than the drugs, for them. Just look at this forum, where so many are trying alternatives, and this is only one forum, for one condition. There are many, many others where people are educating themselves (no doctor is going to do that!) and taking charge of their own health. Communities are seeking to DE-flouridate their water (the first town in the US to flouridate water is now considering taking it back out-big news up north), parents are no longer slathering their innocent kids with sunscreen, more parents are choosing to delay vaccinating their kids, or not vaccinate at all, in all aspects people are learning how to be healthy and AWAY from hospitals, doctors, and drugs. With more and more folks taking charge of their own health, that is bound to yield additional insights into how we all function, with and without PD.

And, my favorite thought in all of this: for every pill that someone passes up in favor of a non-Rx alternative, there goes several dollars off big pharma's bottom line. Think this is not making an increasingly significant difference to that bottom line? Even as I type this there is a strong movement to regulate the vitamin and supplement industry, just as the Rx industry is. Just think, clinical trials for Vitamin C! If you want to have to get a prescription so you can take mucuna, or milk thistle, or ginseng, don't bother contacting your congressman to let him/her know how outraged by this proposal you are. But I digress...

Then there's the greed, both a blessing and a curse (ever notice how "curse" is spelled the same as "cure" but without the "s"?). Just as we feel big pharma's insatiable greed drives it to find only treatments and not cures, milking those treatments until the patent expires, then finally repackaging the same old drug for "new" uses, there are scores of companies waiting in the wings to get in on all of that lucrative disease action. They are the ones coming up with the gene therapies, the DBS, and whatever else is in our future. They are highly competitive, focused in on the goal, and skilled enough to achieve it. We just have to stay as healthy as possible until they do.

I would love to see a charity, to be formed, the sole purpose of which is to pay for the expenses (hospital, travel, meals, lodging, etc.) of a parkie who is unable to pay for a treatment which would get him back on his feet. I fancy it would function like the Heifer organization (google it if you don't know), where someone who received its benefit would then, once he got on his feet again, contribute to the charity so that a fellow parkie could be helped. This would be particularly appropriate if there were a treatment (in or outside the US) that was not approved by the FDA or covered by insurance (for those lucky enough to have it) or medicare/medicaide. This would free parkies from the limitations of only FDA/insurance-approved treatments, and if the charity were big enough, it would encourage researchers to look for solutions outside the confines of the "FDA approved only" box. And, for every person who got back on their feet, and off the meds, that would be one less person sustaining Big Pharma, and as more and more people got on their feet and off the meds, then one day, perhaps Big Pharma just might not be so big anymore...