I was at a conference on the lumbar spine some years ago, and the main speaker, a doctor renowned for his research on the spine, said that we should throw out nearly all the research that had been done to date. Most of it was, in his opinion, useless or wrong.

Evidence Based Practise: That's the main buzzword in medicine of any kind these days, and yet there's very little evidence to support most of what is done. The good research just simply hasn't been done.

For good reasons - 1. it's very expensive to have enough subjects, have enough trained researchers for it to be double blinded, have it properly randomised, etc. 2. it's really difficult to control all the variables - most studies end up saying "this may show that .......... and further study is required. 3. To really prove something, the study has to be repeatable by other researchers. But everyone wants to do original research and all the funding sources also want to be in on the original stuff, so it's hard to get money to be the second one. So there's lots of tantalizing information out there that has never been repeated, so you don't know.

And the money that's wasted on stupid research topics makes me crazy. I would like to shake PD researchers and tell them that their work is incredibly important, they can't waste a single day or dollar, get to the good stuff. I know the basic science is necessary, but come on......!