Firstly, your article mentions that the author is a restaurant critic and her smell has not been affected. No effect on the olfactory system is common to those with genetic mutations. Since there is also a history in the family of Parkinson's disease, the author more than likely may have a genetic form of Parkinson's Disease. The Author might consider going to Athena Diagnostics and having a Parkin gene test completed. The author could be a helpful candidate in the area of genetic research. By having the test, if the author proves to have a mutation, he/she could be helpful by providing researchers more gene information to discover a cure for not only patients with a genetic cause, but also those with idiopathic Parkinson's. Parkinson's disease is not caused by genetics, but if researchers can discover a commonality between exposure of a toxin or commonality of stress, for those with genetic mutations, it will also present a strong piece of evidence of what causes idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

To date, evidence suggests the best treatment approach to helping those with genetic mutations is DBS surgery, which will help by decreasing the patient's need for meds.

The three diseases the author lists in her article, Tuberculocus, Polio and malaria are all caused by parasites. Either the author is stating that the the cure for Parkinson's is as simple as discovering a parasite, or she is comparing apples and oranges. The brain's blood barrier would be pretty tough to penetrate for a parasite. Today's scientific society is advanced enough to have picked up a parasite if the answer was that simple. It is precisely the complexity of the brain and the blood brain barrier that a cure has not yet been developed. Yes, I was told 15 years ago that a cure would be found in 5 years. I was told the cure would be found through stem cell research. How many years and how many billions of dollars do scientists need to continue to insist researching stem cells is the answer to curing Parkinson's disease?

Just curious, is there a relationship between the author's grandmother and Dr. Lieberman or is the same last name just coincidence?

The tissue used from couples who have chosen to use invitro fertilization is the responsibility of the parents. More and more couples are choosing to try this route because they want a family or the wife is a professional who wants to put off childbirth until her late 30's or 40's, after her career is established. If a couple is unable to bear their own children, the embryos are provided to give them an opportunity to fulfill their need to be parents.

The children born iare a gift from God to teach us how to nourish, love, and give fully of ourselves until we have taught the child to be self sufficient . In turn, the children, if properly nourished by their parents, will also have children and the skills learned to help their parents when they are elderly and need help. Children were never meant to be a right for every married couple and certainly not frozen as embryo's so the parent's may choose to have them implanted when it is convenient for the parent's to raise them, or to implant in a surrogate mother. Because the technology is available, does it mean it is correct to use it?

Children are left home alone after school while both parents go to work. Children are fatherless or motherless, forcing mothers or fathers to work with no energy to raise the children with the love they need. We were the me generation. The current generation are the rights generation. Fortunately, some of the current generation are more intelligent than our generation and see the problems that are a result of putting "me" first and are working to counteract our actions.

No one has the [B]right[B] to bear children, it is a gift. Children are not material objects that we have a right to own when it is convenient for us; Nor are they born to meet our needs. They are born for us to serve. They are human beings, who when born are totally helpless and dependent on their parents for nurturing. Young girls are having children in High School before they are prepared themselves to raise children not because they want the child: they want a child because they lack the love they never received themselves as children. Seems a heavy burdon to place on a helpless infant.

When society accepted the premise that children are a right, rather than a gift, and accepted the method of freezing embryo's they opened a Pandora's box. Only a human embryo can grow to be a human person. It is in the genes of the embryo. Now society is willing to go another step down the easy path and choose to demean what it means to be human by denying the human embryo the right to life, because the adult values his life more than the gift of life in the embryo.

If this is not evidence that the devil is a real entity at work in our society, I don't know what is. Man is fallible, and will rationalize what is immoral in society to be moral when he wants it bad enough. Is the answer to man's mistake to continue to meet out needs by benifiting from the mistake or to refuse to participate in the results of the immoral act?

I was repeatedly sexually abused by my father. Would it be right for me to use this fact to abuse my children and blame it on the fact that it was the only way I knew how to be a parent? No, I must hold myself to a higher standard of knowing what is right and what is wrong and change the behaivior. Society, however, would excuse any behaivior I engaged in, ie., had I chosen prostitution, drugs, etc. because I was driven to it by a bad childhood. Society would encourage me to make my father pay for his actions by sending him to jail or fining him in a court settlement.

The devil is hard at work tempting us to believe we are not responsible for either societies actions or our individual acts. Looks to me like he is winning.

Vicky