Debi, your description of the real pipeline for new PD therapies is just what was needed to help us all to understand the complexites of the process. The gaps between the basic science results, which often make the popular press with headlines of "Breakthrough in Curing Parkinson's Disease" and the actual prduction and release of significant, effective treatments are filled with huge traps and barriers.

Paula, I appreciate your affirming response to Debbie's description.

I am in a position similar to that of the man Debbie described on the MJFF board who watched his mother suffer and finally succumb to PD. My mother also died after more than 30 years of PD, in spite of my efforts to obtain l-dopa treatment for her in 1968, as it was being developed. My older brother was diagnosed some ten years later, but had access to sinemet for the twelve or so years it was effective for his symptoms. I recieved my own Dx in 2001, three years before his death from the disease in 2004. Although not presently in the advanced stages of PD, I have no illusions about what awaits me in a few years as my current attempts at slowing disease progression eventually fail. My real hope is that true disease-modifying or curative treatment breakthoughs will be forthcoming before my own children or grandchildren may have to face the same situation.

Robert