Cate,

In this interview, he actually states very clearly that he does not 'cure' PD, or any other disease for that matter, merely that he can help people bring about an improvement in their health, hopefully to the point of being 'symptom free'. This is not simply splitting hairs. Many people recover from cancer, only to die eventually of something else. Were they cured of cancer or were they in remission at time of death? Aiming to recover one's health is a good goal and requires that one be pro-active in medical matters, and crucially, in non-medical areas of one's life; that is why it makes no sense to be talking of a cure. Such talk I would consider unethical.

I am not surprised that the four people he has helped to become symptom free are keeping quiet about it. I am getting enough flak here for just opening up a discussion about the possibility of recovery. Part of what you need to do to maintain well being is to forget you ever had PD, dis-identify with it, and remember how it felt before you became sick. For a lot of people, healing would require that they focus on what brings about well-being but stop thinking and talking about the original diagnosis. Being in the public limelight would not further that goal. Coleman has the strength to bear it.

Lots of people recover from 'incurable' diseases. Take a look at The Spontaneous Remission Project, though I suspect recovery is anything but spontaneous:

http://www.noetic.org/research/proje...raphy-project/

My two adult children have been following this thread. The youngest told me she was initially skeptical of Coleman until she listened to the interview. Then she pointed out that it is easier for her and me to believe in Coleman because we have seen what it is like to spend years on meds but also know what it is like to now be med-free. Most people on this forum can only compare pre-medicated and medicated states. She added that it must be "horrible" to be told you could have recovered after years of committing yourself to drug therapy.

My older daughter commented that the moment people are told they could recover, when they 'know' they can't, it probably makes them feel that their claim to a dx is not being taken seriously in the first place. She also feels that falling into the neurologist's trap of going for L-dopa pre-empts an opportunity of recovery.

The buyer of any service must beware; I don't think that applies to Coleman over anyone else. The fact that he hasn't been endorsed by the Australian PD Association would not discourage me one bit. Such associations have to work closely with the neurological and pharmaceutical communities.

When a critical mass of people recover their health and some courageous neurologist publishes a journal article about the scale and quality of the iatrogenic effects of PD meds, then there will be a flood of law suits. That, and the observations of my children above, are the reasons you will not see PD associations rush to advocate for the kind of approach Coleman is outlining. Very often they depend on the support, financial and otherwise, of neurology departments and pharmaceutical companies, to endorse and fund their out-reach services, conferences, training of personnel, online Q & A services, privileging access to DBS programmes and so on. They are not going to rock that boat.