Laura -- I've been working closely with several PD organizations over the last decade, time during which I have tried to maintain a kind of neutrality of opinion, believing it was not my place to favor one organization over another. All of them are doing their best to help patients, and I sit at organizational tables to represent patients, not to do the org's bidding.

But I have now come to believe that MJFF is our best hope for a cure, and will promote them as our collective voice. Michael J Fox is more than a figurehead. He, although in an exceptional position, is a patient and one of us. He is using his exceptionalism on our behalf, and I think what he and MJFF are doing is what any of us would have done in his position. I think it is time to rally behind him as the leading voice for PD patients everywhere. If we put our collective energy into MJFF, with the financial and intellectual power they already hold, we will be unstoppable.