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Dear Alvis Clegg, There is a lot of evidence that environmental factors play a big part in the above normal increased death rate of the substantia nigra cells in the body. These are the cells that produce dopamine for the body. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of evidence that this cause is also attributable to genetic and/or virual components as well. Or ......it may be a combination of all three ...or any two of the above. The truth is, that is something that is not known, and there are strong arguments for each case (the permutations for 3 is 7). I lean to the environmental side of the fence, but would not bet money on it because some of the evidence in the other two areas are very compelling. As for me, I am a photographer, developing my first roll of film at age 12 ...over fifty years ago. In those days you put your "hands in the soup" (developers, short stops, and hypo)......as it was also for Margaret Bourke-White, and Edward Weston (two very well know photographers in their day). All of us, plus a large number of other photographers, I know came down with Parkinson's disease. Environmental; One would think so, and yet, I know just as many photographers in the same time-frame that do not have Parkinson's. Maybe, someday, the true mechanisms of PD will be known. Lets hope, but in the mean-time, lets not think we have it all figured out 'cause it t'aint necessarily so. ....with aplogies to George Gershwin. VernD <[log in to unmask]