Activity on this board reminds me a great deal of activity on the Stock Market. A stock is put "in play", there is a great deal of buying and selling activity, it rises and then falls back to near its original level. On this board, an idea is put "in play", it attracts interest, eventually runs "out of gas" and disappears into the archives never to be resurected.

Could we change the culture of this board?

In a previous post I had indicated that if we are to achieve any kind of recognition from the (medical) PD community we need a track record. By this I mean we need to have members of our community publish papers in peer reviewed journals. This is not an entirely off beat idea. Some of you have spent an enormous amount of time collecting PD literature. Why not assemble this in a large review paper? Indeed, it could be published in a series of papers, since the literature on PD is so vast and varied.

Similarly, it would be helpful if some of us had a track record on securing research funding. Again, not an offbeat idea. I have a colleague who set up a research lab in his basement which was funded for a number of years by the National Science Foundation. Another colleague is in the Geology Department of his University but is funded by NIH on the strength of an idea he had. If you have a viable research idea and lack the laboratory or other logistical resources to carry it out you can ally yourself with someone who does have the University resources. This has been one of the beauties of the Internet. In some cases, I have never met my co-authors. Our collaborations has been entirely through the internet. I have no idea of their lab resources and they have none of mine.

Finally, I have been thinking of ways to give our malady greater visibility...and I've come up with the idea of a book. What I have in mind is a book of vignettes written by people with Parkinson's, their care givers, even their doctors. I got this idea by reading posts from people like Rosebud, Steffi, Paula and ol'cs. In reading their posts, I have often thought that they deserve, and this malady deserves, a wider audience. It is filled with hope, anger, setbacks, humour, all that we should share with a non-pD audience. Some of the vignettes already exist in the archive but others could be gleaned from the PD community.

What do you think? Remember, I look upon this as something more then stock pick that is being put "in play".

All the best,

Lloyd