I read they are currently using this in a clinical trial for ALS. Apparently they tried it before, it didn't work like hoped, they waited a bit, and are re-trying it again.

Forums are valuable sources of information. I visited an ALS forum to get a "feel" for how patients viewed this trial, and the drug, and got mixed results. One poster was quite cynical and echoed what many say about PD research: same old, same old, this is just another example of science trying new uses for drugs that have expired patents or re-working drugs to extend the patent. One astute guy noted, though, that until they mimic what happens in real life in the lab, nothing will change...his point was that they always pre-treat the animal with the drug BEFORE giving it the disease at hand, which never happens in life. If we'd known we were going to get slammed with PD, we'd have been smoking cigarettes, eating wheels of MAO-inhibiting cheese, raising that cholesterol to the heavens, and soaking in the sun. But no one does, so why they keep designing trials to deliver the drug first and then induce the disease second is beyond me...surely not $$$$?