Please remove my name from list.
Hans H. Strupp
On Sat, 5 Aug 2000 00:00:21 -0400 Automatic digest
processor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There are 4 messages totalling 195 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. WARNING: Non-Technical email
> 2. Marines with PD (And other GI's)
> 3. NEWS: BBC: Microsoft holds back the hands of time
> 4. Marines with PD
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 20:49:35 -0400
> From: John Testa <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: WARNING: Non-Technical email
>
> Most of the three plus years we have been on the PIEN my husband and I have mostly been lurkers. And as stated before this subject does come up every once in a while. But I feel this once I will give my 2 cents worth! I have to agree with Greg. If it wasn't for this wonderful place to meet with people who have so much in common all our lives would not be so enriched. We have been meeting with Linda and Ed Hermann half way between Buffalo( where they live) and Rochester (our home) 6 or 7 times a year since we met them on the PEIN! Two wonderful people we would never have know had we not been on the service. We also have had the great fortune to start corresponding with
> Greg and his wife Diane. And as he stated when they were visiting here we got together with them. We have come along way since my husband was diagnosed over 5 years ago. Getting to know people not just cold facts we have gotten though hard times with this disease and we have learned to laugh and cry with everyone.
> Donna and John 52/46/45
> Greg Sterling wrote:
>
> > Peter,
> > This List is more than just a source of facts and statistics on PD. It is a living compilation of PD sufferers and caregivers who rely on each other for support. It's a cyber-support group. I recently met one of these cyber-PWP's and his wife in person and was elated to meet another young-onset parkie. Until then I had only seen pictures of the beast, i.e. Michael J. Fox. I plan to meet more of them at the PD Unity Walk in NYC next month. Without this list I don't believe this would have happened. The area I live in is too small to form a successful support group. If you want a sterile forum I suggest you go to a library or a hospital for your information.
> >
> > Greg
> > 47/35/35
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 21:35:05 EDT
> From: Sid Levin <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Marines with PD (And other GI's)
>
> To substantiate the impact of a toxic environment as a cause of P-D, the
> following article refers to good research that ties Gulf War Syndrome to
> neuronal damage caused by toxic exposure.
> ******************************* News Aarticle*******************
> NEW STUDY CONFIRMS BRAIN STEM DAMAGE TO SICK GULF WAR VETERANS
>
>
> By John Hanchette
> Gannett News Service
>
> WASHINGTON - Veterans of the 1991 war with Iraq complaining of mysterious
> "Gulf War Illness" symptoms are showing significant damage in the brain stem
> area, according to a new Pentagon-sponsored study at the University of Texas
> Southwestern Medical Center.
>
> Published in the current issue of the peer - review science journal
> Radiology, the $3 million study employed state-of-the-art brain scans and
> raises new implications that troops in the Persian Gulf War might have been
> exposed to low levels of the saran nerve gas.
>
> More than 15 percent of the 697,000 troops who served in the desert war
> have complained of mysterious chronic symptoms since then - including joint
> and muscle pain, headaches, insomnia, memory loss, fatigue, imbalance,
> confusion, depression - and some have suffered serious neural illnesses such
> as multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig's disease.
>
> The Pentagon - at first discounting the complaints, then offering
> much-scoffed-at claims that psychological stress was to blame - in recent
> years has been pouring millions into research on causes and treatments.
>
> The Texas team looked at 40 Seabees from a Naval Reserve construction
> battalions - 22 of them sick and 18 of them well - and six other sick Gulf
> War vets randomly selected from other units. The project investigators did
> not know which of the 46 vets were sick or which were symptom-free.
>
> Led by UT Southwestern epidemiologist Robert Haley, the study team found
> that a vital brain chemical called NAA (N-acetyl-aspartate) necessary for the
> good health of brain neurons, was as much as 25 percent lower in the sick
> veterans.
>
> Haley, a former top disease investigator for the federal Centers for
> Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said NAA "is really a dramatic
> indicator of the brain cell health." Scientists recently have noticed stroke
> victims, for instance, will show a depressed level of NAA, then an increased
> restoration of the substance once the damaged brain area starts to heal.
>
> Diagnostic researchers used to use magnetic resonance imaging to obtain
> clear images of lost or damaged brain tissue from strokes, gunshot wounds or
> diseases. The Texas team used a relatively new procedure called MRS -
> magnetic resonance spectroscopy - which provides a minutely defined chemical
> composition of the brain regions under scrutiny and shows previously
> undiscoverable abnormalities.
>
> Haley looked at three areas: the brain stem, which connects the brain and
> the spinal cord, and the right and left basal ganglia - sugar-cube-size
> groups of nerve cells that sit above the brain stem on both sides, just under
> the cerebrum. These areas are vital in controlling smooth muscle actions,
> memory, breathing, sleeping, thought connection, emotions and balance.
>
> The article reported that the veterans with the severest symptoms -
> memory loss, disrupted balance, severe fatigue, frequent confusion - showed
> severe damage to all three areas: brain stem, right and left ganglia.
>
> In the less-ill subjects, damage was found only in the ganglia, or in the
> stem alone. The findings, said Haley, might mean some vets have lost up to 25
> percent of functioning neurons in those brain areas, or that all cells have
> lost 25 percent of their NAA, or a combination.
>
> "There's cautious optimism," said Haley, "that if it means all cells are
> 25 percent injured, we could eventually see possible rehabilitation through
> somehow restoring NAA. We don't yet know what NAA really does."
>
> He said the brain damage in the Gulf War vets is similar to that found in
> very early stages of at least four relentlessly progressive neural diseases:
> Parkinson's, Huntington's chorea, Wilson's disease, and Fahr's syndrome.
>
> Haley and associates have proposed "more big research, almost a Manhattan
> Project approach" on this course, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas,
> has added $5 million to the defense appropriations bill for an expanded
> research facility at UT Southwestern Medical for that purpose. That bill has
> passed a Senate committee and a floor vote is expected soon.
>
> Previous tests at UT Southwestern on the sick Seabees showed they have
> lower-than-normal levels of an enzyme called paraoxanase, which has been
> shown to protect against the nerve gas sarin, which Iraqi dictator Saddam
> Hussein was known to have in his arsenal. Many of the vets tested, said
> Haley, were deployed in areas where chemical alarms went off constantly and
> sensitive equipment recorded readings of nerve gas in the region, and where
> prevailing winds might have carried plumes from bombed Iraqi chemical plants.
>
> The Pentagon called the study "interesting work, but it is not yet
> conclusive" - and noted in a release that animal studies indicate exposure to
> nerve agents "causing no short-term signs or symptoms do not produce chronic
> illness." In other words, if symptoms weren't noticed on the battlefield,
> nerve gas didn't' cause them after troops returned home.
>
> ******************************************************************************
> This information should be brought to the attention of the Veteran's groups
> in your area. They can and should petition their Senatorf for the budgeting
> of funds for the NETRPS research by the DOD.
> A good program for PWP and for all veterans (and the genreal public).
> Sid Levin
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 20:46:53 -0500
> From: "C. Y. Thomas" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: NEWS: BBC: Microsoft holds back the hands of time
>
> On Fri, 4 Aug 2000 20:06:01 -0400, Bob Anibal <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> >There are a few programs out there some free some shareware that will =
> set
> >your PC clock to the clock at the US Naval Observatory, which is just =
> about
> >the most exact clock there is.
>
> One such is Dimension 4 for Windows 98. It is Freeware and can be
> downloaded at:
>
> http://www.thinkman.com/index.html
> or
> http://www.bldrdoc.gov/timefreq/service/nts.htm
>
> I have found the program to be easy to use. However, to have it work
> properly, be sure that you have the correct time zone set in your
> computer.
>
> You can also download a list of suppiers from:
>
> http://www.bldrdoc.gov/timefreq/service/time-computer.html
>
> To download the list, just click on at the page above:=20
> Publishers of Computer Time Synchronization Software=20
> One caveat - you must have an Adobe Reader in order to see the list.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 19:08:08 -0700
> From: Audrey <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Marines with PD
>
> Hi list,
>
> It wasn't only marines that had the anthrax shot given of course, as a
> young friend of mine was in the army during the Gulf War and he hasnt PD
> as yet, and they all had the shot he told me. I have to take exception
> too, in theory, to the supposition that pd can not be contracted through
> hazardous work. My pwp is in nuclear medicine. I read last year about
> the incidence of pd among those who work around different hazardous
> hospital situations as he does. I know he told me he had no lesions on
> his brain only on his spinal cord at least at that time of dx. When I
> finally mentioned to him what I had read, he said, I know that but what
> difference does it make now? I am mentioning this because some of you
> may have seen this information as I did, yet I have lost the site now in
> a reformat.
>
> *seattle* Audrey friend of pwp aussie John 49/42/38?
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of PARKINSN Digest - 4 Aug 2000 (#2000-656)
> ***********************************************
----------------------
Hans H. Strupp, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Department of Psychology
301 Wilson Hall
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37240
Tel.: 615 - 322 - 0049
Fax: 615 - 343 - 8449
email: [log in to unmask]
