[lou_lou]

Med-America Research, Whitestone, New York 11357, USA.

Recent studies in the Parkinson's literature have cited a tuberculosis-like germ called Nocardia as being responsible for Parkinson's disease. Kohbata seemingly cemented a relationship between Nocardia and Parkinson's by finding serologic evidence in 20 of 20 Parkinson's patients, acknowledging that blood tests for Nocardia and the mycobacteria such as tuberculosis often cross-react, as they belong to the same order of bacteria, the Actinomycetales.

Besides this difficulty in differentiation, a well-used medical school textbook of microbiology, Atlas, points out that even among experts, different observers may classify the same strain of bacteria as Nocardia or Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Parkinson's: another look is a theoretical article which presents compelling, well-documented evidence for an infectious cause for Parkinson's disease on historical, epidemiological, pharmacologic, microbiological, and biochemical levels.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12208174