<bigger>Listmembers,

</bigger>

<fontfamily><param>Times New Roman</param><bigger><bigger>First a
parable:

Once upon a time a certain mister X did some shopping. He did  spend all
his money except the last 2 euro's. As he started to walk home  a beggar
came up to him, who not only said he was hungry, but who also looked the
part.

He begged mister X to give him some money so he could buy some bread  Mr.
X took his last  2 euro's from his pocket, intending to give one if them
to the beggar, as another man came up to him. This one did not look like
a beggar at all,  but he too asked for money. In fact he did advise mr. X
to invest his money (by buying a booklet fom him) in some very profitable
project, that would create a future in which nobody would ever have to
beg again. He was, so he explained, a researcher who wished to free
humanity from suffering. He had worked for a long time on a prestigeous
project to cure humanity from the disease of hunger by changing his genes
in such a way that he no longer needed food to stay alive. And now their
goal was on the verge of being fulfilled, but they needed some funding to
go on and finish the last phase of the project. He very enthousiastically
told about a future world without hunger. Seeing mr. X's doubt he added:
" If you don't mind about human suffering, do it for the returns this
investment will give you and believe me they will be fantastic."

But mr X, although greedy to collect returns on investments, was not a
complete fool. He said: "If  your story is true, why is it that not many
people queue to be able to invest in your project ?", and because he did
mind human suffering, he gave his money to the beggar, who happilly
bought his bread, and left.=20

During the next weeks the anti-hunger project came  into his mind=20
frequently and bothered him. Didn't he miss a big chance? After a few
weeks he saw on tv a program about a project that had started in the
fifties and was completely forgotten. He saw on his screen how some
researchers and politiciens said they needed funding to be able to
definitely and completely the fight against thirst, the technoloy for
changing people in  such a way that they did not need water to stay
alive, was on the verge of  being found. The resemblance of their
rhetorics and the rhetorics of the man, who recently accosted him on the
topic of hunger, was striking. From that time on the thoughts, which had
bothered him never came back and he forgot the whole thing.=20


Why did mr X give his money to the beggar rather than invest it in the
project? I think it is because he did not believe the story about the
project. Seeing later on  tv the program about the thirst project, he
concluded that his disbelief had been sound.

It might have been possible  to convince mr X he had better invest his
last euro in the project, if a very down to earth and understandable plan
had existed, which explained in a convincing way  what was found already
by the project and what  had yet to be found.

Does a plan like this about the conquering  of parkinson exist? If yes,
why don't we all know that plan? If no, why doesn't it exist?


I'll tell now a quite different story, but this is one that really
happened some years ago.

 A young man, a recently qualified doctor, did not want to practice as a
GP. He was from a family  of scientists, and two Nobel Price  winners and
wished to follow in the footsteps of his successfull relations.

But he was not that brilliant and could only get a research job in
virology. He was very depressed, because doing research on influenza and
things like that, would not be the heroic struggle he had dreamed  of=20
for so long. But then, miracles do happen sometimes, there  was AIDS . It
was for him a gift from heaven. This may seem cynical;  but that's the
way  it is.=20


The relation of this story with the funding of the Udal bill is that the
Parkinson researchers, who would find a cure, would secure an upgrading
of their status, (which is very important to most of them), like that
doctor whose research object changed from influenza to AIDS.

This makes me wonder why we are not flooded by solid and competing  plans
from eager researchers, that map the route to a cure. Might it be that
those solid plans simply do not yet exist?

=20

Ida Kamphuis</bigger></bigger></fontfamily>



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Vriendelijke Groeten / Kind regards,


Ida Kamphuis                            mailto: [log in to unmask]