[ol'cs]

on what PD researchers SHOULD be looking into, in order to get to "the bottom" of the PD question, or fire up the run time to a "cure" or at least a "prevention".

MY first and foremost question is "what is killing DA neurons"? Is is stress, inflammation, built in genetically by some distant mutation, toxin(s), or WHAT. To me , we can take all the serendipitous shots in the dark we want, but very little progress will be made until we know WHAT is killing off these so very precious brain cells. Is it "one thing", a "host of things" or just WHAT. IMHO PD researchers should be focusing on getting PD neurons from cadavers, then , trying first just to keep them alive (ie; culture them; not easy). If colonies can be made either by using nerve growth factors and/or cloning. Then every possible cellular microprobe known (and others yet to be invented) should be used to try to answer the above question. As you guys and gals know, I fastidiously fly the transplant flag and would not be deterred from this line of inquiry just because my nice healthy in-vitro neurons kept dying.
We could take a lesson from macro-organ transplants. Newly transplanted livers don't get cirrhosis again if the tranplantee stops boozing, and new heart transplant patients don't suffer heart attacks if they stick to doctors orders (and got a good implant to start with. Today, almost any organ can be transplanted successfully. Why should it be so dang blasted difficult to be able to transplant new SN cells and not have them just die off on us like the old ones? We are doing something WRONG, and it seems that researchers are giving up too easy to make that something wrong, figured out. and made RIGHT.
If it's true that newly implanted SN cells are suffering the same fate as ones presently in place, then that's a clue. What it is saying (if we accept that the same factors are responsible for killing new SN neurons, as it did the older ones), then the FAULT is probably not within the cells themselves, but is due to an exogenous mechanism. Such a clue would suggest that the environment around the new neurons should first of all be "cleaned" of any obvious exogenous factors; "helped" by introduction of agents known to induce growth and survival; and "monitored" to see just what is happening in-vivo (radioligand(?) tagging of (?) to monitor intracellular health, needing lots of new ideas here.
On the other hand, scrap what i just said, and think of this idea! I wonder if mutated enzymes are producing very small quantities of an MPTP like specific DA neurotoxin, by some as yet undiscovered pathway. This would answer a lot of questions, such as PD before the industrial age and any newly introduced neurons being subject to the same fate as the old ones. That's what i'd do. i would look for very small quantities of a neurotoxin with a structure similar to MPTP in dead neurons. If something like this were found, all that would be neccessary to halt the PD process would be to find a specific enzyme inhibitor to this newly found pathway to this newly found neurotoxin.
Of course, if something other than PD is going to make humankind extinct in the near future, we should just eat what we want, drink what we want and just make merry!!!

[reverett123]

...and worth every penny.

There is a more detailed outline at http://www.parkinsonsonline.org/PD_Outline_Index.html, but the condensed version is an overlapping interaction of abnormal ("dysregulated") states in the immune, endocrine, and GI systems impacting the nervous system. The damage we see in the SN etc is a symptom of the real causes and that is why the new cells die.

Given the pattern of PD in the population, certain requirements are going to have to be met by any explanation. Family clusters are rare, so it is not pure genetics. Environmental toxins would produce a pattern of localized case "clumping" that is not seen. It appears to be increasing and appearing at a younger age.It seems more prevalent in the industrialized West. And, despite the common wisdom, it seems to have been a rare affliction prior to James Parkinson' s essay. Even his description is significantly different than what we experience. And reading the so-called "ancient texts" that purportedly describe the condition is less than convincing. They could be describing many things.

The cause must be common but the effect rare. Still with me? Darn, I like that sentence. It is paradoxical just like PD.

Common because PD is found all over the world and rare because only we lucky few get it. Think of an inverse Lotto game. Everybody's buying tickets but only a few win the prize.

Expose a fetus or young child to bacterial toxin LPS and his immune system becomes sensitized or "primed" against further encounters.

Expose the same child to stress hormones and he becomes sensitized to them. In addition, his control system for such things becomes out of whack.

Much of the effects of both exposures don't show up until after puberty.

Stress chemicals slow the GI system. The immune system and the stress (endocrine) system both cause inflammation which, in turn, causes both "leaky gut" and a leaky BBB.

This leads to toxins from the GI system finding their way to the brain. One of the most common is LPS. Within the brain, LPS triggers the "innate" immune warriors, the microglia. Already "primed", they over react and release chemicals (cytokines) that do collateral damage to neurons. (BTW, the substantia nigra has one of the highest densities of microglia in the brain.)

In addition, the chemical soup from chronic stress kills neurons. It also interferes with neurogenic repair.

So, our neurons are bathed in a mix of three soups. The toxins that escape from the GI tract. The one that comes from the immune system. And the third from the endocrine system. Each leading to dead neurons.

And that is the condensed version.

For the record, 75% of that comes from the work of our ocassional guest Anne Frobert, MD.

[lou_lou]

Thank you for asking for opinions -dear cs!
as you know I always have one!

I see People as the top of the Food chain...
actually Rich greedy People are the top of the food chain

we that were born healthy did not come into the world with an Rx tatooed
to our lil bottoms!

Hippocrates of the old greek world - supposedly the father of medicine said -
let you medicine be your food -and your food medicine.

enter greed into the equation
one of the names of greed is - MONSANTO
when we poison the crops -which poisons the ground and gets into the groundwater and kills the bugs and bees, and the fish & makes frogs degenerate having both male and female reproductive organs-
the chemicals have altered the DNA and the RNA...
and therefore~
we are in deep trouble...
nutrition was actually the type of doctor that Hippocrates was -
and Ayuveda is all about nutrtion -how we can - or cant digest food...
~~~~~~~~~~
when the greed for crops to flourish without failure, and income of loot
is so tempting -the Monsanto's of the world have began the killing cycle

here is a sample from farming for fertility:

Animal Nutrition and Health
“We are prone to destroy the beast when it aborts, when it gives midgets, or when it contracts a disease common to ourselves. Destroying the evidence is apparently a more common practice than diagnosing it to find the cause of the abnormalities”. — William Albrecht

Several years ago, I was visited by a sheep grazier from South Australia who had converted his property to organic in 1963. I asked him what he did about worms in his sheep. “I used lead,” he said. “For the first three, or four years after conversion, I shot any sheep with worms and I slowly bred the susceptibility out of them”.

This does not mean that organically raised sheep never get worms. Parasitic worms in livestock like fungal disease organisms in the soil, are always present. It is only when they get out of hand that they are a problem. It is very likely that a low level of some of them are essential to the livestock’s well-being.26 The causes of worm problems include stress, genetic susceptibility and malnutrition. One of the main problems of our recent worm control strategies has been the covering up of genetic susceptibility. Prior to the widespread adoption of anthelmintics, susceptible beasts were either culled by the grazier, or Nature. In personal comment on this, a member of the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industry told me that parasitic worms were more prevalent in livestock today than they were prior to the introduction of modern anthelmintics. Since there are no new anthelmintics on the horizon and there is widespread resistance to most of those in current use, we have no choice other than to adopt a more organic approach to the problem.

Apart from genetic susceptibility, probably the most prevalent cause of parasitic worm problems is nutritional stress. The pursuit of higher grass yields, regardless of pasture quality, has led to an overall decline in livestock health. This has been masked, not cured, by ever increasing veterinary chemical inputs. I am not arguing here for the elimination of veterinary chemicals, but against farming strategies that necessitate their overuse.

One useful piece of research suggested by my friend Dr Mike Walker would be to question stock agents about the relative health status of a large number of properties. The pastures of those known to produce consistently healthy livestock could then be analysed for their balance of grass species, grazing management and fertility status of the soils.

Many organic farmers go to some lengths to diversify the pasture species grown beyond the usual grasses and clovers. The ubiquitous flatweed plantain, for instance, supplies more protein to stock than clover. When clover is grazed, the nitrogen fixing root nodules detach and decompose in the soil. The released bacterial protein is then consumed by the plantain before it is in turn consumed by the livestock. New Zealand agronomists have developed strains superior to the wild types.

Other useful species that generally need to be sown include chicories, yarrow and sheep’s burnet. Grass, clover and herb mixtures (herbal ley) are readily available from seed merchants in Europe and North America, but sadly not here as yet.

We have already referred to the necessity of balancing the ratios of the major cations, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium in the soil. Not only does this result in better crop health, but also better animal health. Where the soil is unbalanced, the stock’s nutritional requirements can be balanced by the judicious use of mineral licks, or drenches. Pate Coleby, a Gippsland farmer has pursued this route with some interesting results. When her mineral drenches were compared to veterinary chemicals by the Victorian Department of Agriculture, the results were remarkably similar. One suspects that the minerals were considerably less expensive than the veterinary chemicals.

Many organic farmers the author has spoken to emphasise the importance of avoiding stress to livestock as a prime means of avoiding health problems. For instance, Alfred Haupt, a Bio Dynamic sheep grazier and cropper in New South Wales, talks about the different smell of sheep that are frightened. This smell, he says, is attractive to flies. By minimising loud noises (such as those generated by motorbikes and noisy dogs) he reduces fly strike problems. Those few that are struck are treated with a mixture of pyrethrum and garlic. The pyrethrum kills the maggots and the garlic heals the wound rapidly while at the same time repelling flies that may strike the wound again.

http://www.ecogrowth.com.au/farmfert6.html
______________

here is a table from a pdf -called

Wildlife Disease and Zoonotics
Other Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife
Disease
University of Nebraska - Lincoln Year 1999
Chemical Toxins (Field Manual of
Wildlife Diseases)
Milton Friend

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/vi...t=zoonoticspub

Pesticides
This group includes chemicals that are used to kill or repel organisms that are unwanted in particular situations.
Insecticides are generally the best known pesticides but others, their target organisms, and examples of compounds
within those groups include the following:
Pesticide type Target organisms Compounds
Acaricides Mites, ticks, spiders Permethrin, Phosmet, Methiocarb, Bomyl®, Carbofuran, Demeton
(Systox®)
Algacides Algae Copper sulfate, Potassium bromide, Chlorine
Antibiotics Bacteria Phenol, Nitrapyrin
Avicides Birds Avitrol®, Fenthion, Compound 1080, Starlicide®
Fungicides Fungi Thiram, Ziram, Captan, Hexaconazole
Herbicides Plants Diquat®, Alachlor (Lasso®), Atrazine
Molluscicides Snails and slugs Bayluscide®, Methiocarb, Zectran®
Nematocides Nematodes (worms) Terbufos (Counter®), Isazofos (Triumph®), Aldicarb (Temik®),
Carbofuran, Diazinon
Piscicides Fish Rotenone, Antimycin
Repellents Mammals Thiram
Birds Methiocarb
Rodenticides Rodents Warfarin, Diphacinone, Brodifacoum (Talon®), Chlorophacinone
Metals
Wildlife may be exposed to metals when they are components of pesticides, such as mercury and cadmium in
fungicides, or through other routes, such as aquatic food chains with high mercury levels.
Metal Source
Arsenic Used as an insecticide and preservative; present in wastes from metal smelting and glass
manufacturing.
__________________

the summize of my opinion isnt why are we sick?
my question is - Why wouldnt we be sick?

we should not be surprised at all - poison kills - Monsanto plants the crops in poison, we eat the crops that are genetically modified, it takes its toll not on just the bugs -the birds the fish -the cows, but it is making us ill -
it is changing our human DNA and RNA, and we will die,
we - are ill to young and too many - I see all these neurological illnesses as
the result of a huge clinical trial.

Hstory repeats itself -

Permissible Medical Experiments
The great weight of the evidence before us is to the effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.

6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.

7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.

8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.

9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.

10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

Of the ten principles which have been enumerated our judicial concern, of course, is with those requirements which are purely legal in nature--or which at least are so clearly related to matters legal that they assist us in determining criminal culpability and punishment. To go beyond that point would lead us into a field that would be beyond our sphere of competence. However, the point need not be labored. We find from the evidence that in the medical experiments which have been proved, these ten principles were much more frequently honored in their breach than in their observance. Many of the concentration camp inmates who were the victims of these atrocities were citizens of countries other than the German Reich. They were non-German nationals, including Jews and "asocial persons", both prisoners of war and civilians, who had been imprisoned and forced to submit to these tortures and barbarities without so much as a semblance of trial. In every single instance appearing in the record, subjects were used who did not consent to the experiments; indeed, as to some of the experiments, it is not even contended by the defendants that the subjects occupied the status of volunteers. In no case was the experimental subject at liberty of his own free choice to withdraw from any experiment. In many cases experiments were performed by unqualified persons; were conducted at random for no adequate scientific reason, and under revolting physical conditions. All of the experiments were conducted with unnecessary suffering and injury and but very little, if any, precautions were taken to protect or safeguard the human subjects from the possibilities of injury, disability, or death. In every one of the experiments the subjects experienced extreme pain or torture, and in most of them they suffered permanent injury, mutilation, or death, either as a direct result of the experiments or because of lack of adequate follow-up care.

Obviously all of these experiments involving brutalities, tortures, disabling injury, and death were performed in complete disregard of international conventions, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, and Control Council Law No. 10. Manifestly human experiments under such conditions are contrary to "the principles of the law of nations as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and from the dictates of public conscience."

Whether any of the defendants in the dock are guilty of these atrocities is, of course, another question.

Under the Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence every defendant in a criminal case is presumed to be innocent of an offense charged until the prosecution, by competent, credible proof, has shown his guilt to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. And this presumption abides with the defendant through each stage of his trial until such degree of proof has been adduced. A "reasonable doubt" as the name implies is one conformable to reason--a doubt which a reasonable man would entertain. Stated differently, it is that state of a case which, after a full and complete comparison and consideration of all the evidence, would leave an unbiased, unprejudiced, reflective person, charged with the responsibility for decision, in the state of mind that he could not say that he felt an abiding conviction amounting to a moral certainty of the truth of the charge.

If any of the defendants are to be found guilty under counts two or three of the indictment it must be because the evidence has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that such defendant, without regard to nationality or the capacity in which he acted, participated as a principal in, accessory to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, or was connected with plans or enterprises involving the commission of at least some of the medical experiments and other atrocities which are the subject matter of these counts. Under no other circumstances may he be convicted.

Before examining the evidence to which we must look in order to determine individual culpability, a brief statement concerning some of the official agencies of the German Government and Nazi Party which will be referred to in this judgment seems desirable.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946 - April 1949. Washington D.C.: U.S. G.P.O, 1949-1953.


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...berg_Code.html

please look at these photos of history;
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2..._AUDIOSS.html#

http://tinyurl.com/4vvtoy

[ashleyk]

There's a lot of information on the net about Parkinson's and before the net, I guess we all believed PD was a combination of pre-dispossession and environment. It's only since the net that we can now have access to scientific papers and groups like this to get a better understanding of what is happening to our brains that result in many neurological diseases, PD for us.
So my opinion on the cause of PD is the two reasons mentioned above. I also believe that the actual destruction of neurons is the result of neuro-inflammation. Even with cell transplants, if that ever happens, the underlying cause will probably still be there. Maybe the way to deal with PD is to try and stop inflammation. There are many papers from the Pharmacology Dept. of the NIH headed by Dr. Hong that show the symptoms of PD in rodents can be halted or at least slowed by low doses (femtomolar) of opioid likes drugs. Naltrexone and dextromethorphan, DM, are two of these drugs. They are cheap, safe and in the case of DM easily available. There are also herbs and supplements like fish oil, Q10 mucuna pruriens etc. that may also reduce inflammation. I have been taking low dose naltrexone, LDN, now for 47 months plus 600mg of Q10. My overall combo of sinemet and mirapex has not increased over that time.
I believe reducing or halting neuro-inflammation is the key to living with PD.
Ashley
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract

[chasmo]

when he talks about the blood brain barrier. I tthink that is the key to finding the causes and treatments of PD.

Charlie

[Ronhutton]

Originally Posted by chasmo

when he talks about the blood brain barrier. I tthink that is the key to finding the causes and treatments of PD.

Charlie

Thanks Chasmo, I often think if I won the lottery, I could do my own research on the BBB.
First, it is possible to measure the permeability of the BBB in vivo, (of a living patient). So take a group of healthy controls, and measure the average BBB permeability, say 100. Then take a group of PWP and measure their BBB permeabilities. Draw a graph of Hohn & yahr score, (or years of PD), against BBB permeability. Is the graph a straight line? Or is there a clear indication of increasing permeability with increasing years of PD. For example,
2 years PD BBB permeability 110
5 " " " " 140
10 " " " " 170
If so, strong evidence for the theory.
Next look at the table of compounds that improve PD symptoms, and reduce BBB permeability, (curcumin, alpha lipoic acid, etc), and look for a substance with a more profound effect. Use this to reduce the BBB permeability of the PWP's to that of a healthy person (100).
Has dopamine stopped leaking out of your brain into the bloodstream, has carbidopa stopped leaking into your brain, have toxins stopped leaking into your brain, PD symptoms now gone?
I wish one of us could win the lottery!!!
Ron

[annefrobert]

On what PD researchers SHOULD be looking into?

An evidence……… or several.
PD researchers SHOULD be looking into to scientific data , to theirs, their labs’, to the data of the lab next door, same next floor or next building and t to living humanity
( and for a a start e-patients in forum are great witnesses!)

But your question sounds to me too strictly restricted, a vision of scientifc data as a very stiffy matter when one may suggest another one asking ..”on what and "how"and more, “on what and how PD searchers and non searchers”.

PD researchers SHOULD be looking too into to philosophy in order to look at two different data, resullts, hypotheses, theories, cultures not as opposed ones but as extraordinarly complementary,

Integrate philosophy to science so that it gives a sense
See Francisco Varela’s works

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whrpX...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boWnC...eature=related



Foe here is one of the biggest problem :
scientific knowledge is currently far enough extended to make huge improvements in less than one year in PD as well a probably many other illnesses.
.
Seriously, how could it be otherly when billions of dollars are spent every year for PD research and when whathever may be said upon searchers, most of them are doing their job the best it may be done underthe conditions they are given,

But is this enough? No.

If you’d look at Earth from space and think about science, woud you think first about top ranking, peer review and publication in brain or nature or would you hope science to be the possibilility for a better life full of peace for all the inhabitants of the blue planet?

The problems do not come from each one's mind and work but it lays in the consciousness of all of us.
When a civilization, ours, not te be particularly proud of, is able to make money, too much at places and at others let people die from hunger or thirst or illnesses they can't afford money for treatment of
Do you think we may understand how to build something with data.
Human beings must not be seen merely as the means of production and prosperity. The end towards which all our common efforts are focused must surely be quality of human life, and this influenced ethical foundations as well as material considerations

Here are few lines written in 1951 by the most recognized scientist in history, as well as one of the most important,.


"Knowledge exists in two forms - lifeless, stored in books, and alive, in the consciousness of men.
The second form of existence is after all the essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an inferior position.

The area of scientific knowledge has been enormously extended, and theoretical knowledge has become vastly more profound in every department of science.
But the assimilative power of the human intellect is and remains strictly limited.
Hence it was inevitable that the activity of the individual investigator should be confined to a smaller and smaller section of human knowledge.
Worse still, this specialization makes it increasingly difficult to keep even our general understanding of science as a whole, without which the true spirit of research is inevitably handicapped, in step with scientific progress.
Every serious scientific worker is painfully conscious of this involuntary relegation to an ever-narrowing sphere of knowledge, which threatens to deprive the investigator of his broad horizon and degrades him to the level of a mechanic . It is just as important to make knowledge live and to keep it alive as to solve specific problems

The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom, which may be characterised as inward freedom.
It is this freedom of spirit which consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices as well as from unphilosophical routinizing and habit in general.
This inward freedom is an infrequent gift of nature and a worthy objective for the individual.
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.
I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values.
I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a "matter-of-fact" habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. ...
The frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with this sin of omission on the part of our civilization.
Without "ethical culture," there is no salvation for humanity. . Albert E.


Stop compilation of data, this is the trap, start cross fertilization of minds and share of intelligence.

But I have been "killed" for that.

Anne

[ol'cs]

I envision a future where humankind has figured out what the best way to be human is. Food for all, no such thing as the tremendous stress that most of us have been burdened with over a lifetime in order to survive a hostile productivity economy, just to provide the basics to a modest, decent lifestyle.
In order to do this we must first get our population under control, and clean up our nest; then we must make every life worth living to the holder of that life. So maybe research on certain diseases is not a priority to governments which must provide the best for the most right now. But if you have an illness today, in our society as it is; and it's not going to grant you the mercy of a quick death with life insurance for your dependents, and you are just not into getting rid of yourself; cures for chronic diseases should be right up there on societies priority list. I'll never understand why a billion dollar "next generation" military aircraft takes preference to our leaders, than longer term goals of guaranteeing the future of lives well lived for the generations to follow.
Sure us PWP are screaming pretty loud now for some help, simply because we have one of those tragic diseases where we don't die right away, but slowly erode with pain and indignity to the point of very little reason to remain alive. All I want is to be able to walk, to be pain and dyskinesia free, to be free to work and take care of my own, not watch my disease take away everything that I have done in life, while I cant do one damn thing about it. That's why a cure for PD and all other major horrible diseases of humankind should be a priority in our society. WE cant prevent 200,000 deaths due to natural disasters, but if we can save 200,000 lives from a living hell on earth, then we SHOULD.
Thinking more and more about the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine, and other "instant" "parkinsonizers". If we indeed do have an enzyme that 6-hydroxylates dopamine than that's a no-brainer to figuring out the mechanism for PD. Next what is so special about MPTP that it causes instant PD? All eyes should be on a putative neurotoxin produced in the body by enzyme mutations. Anybody know what the status is on this idea?

[smithclayriley]

There should be a central data base where all people diagnosed with pd can put in all their personal info leading to their diagnosis. I think we need to look for the similarities from people that actually have pd or take medications for pd. Like they say how can you fix it if you don't really know what caused it.

[Fiona]

Anne, 'ol cs, your eloquence is more moving than I can say. Thank you.

Very clear evidence that the beauty of the human heart and soul IS NOT destroyed by PD. I, for one, cherish that and it gives me hope.