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Parkinson's Disease is certainly mystifying. As I read some of the recent notes I see many of you listing environmental exposure that you feel might have caused your PD. Yet, before I retired, I was a Chemical Engineer and spent large amounts of time in chemical and petrochemical plants of all types in all parts of the world, as well as oil refineries, cement mills, pulp and paper mills, textile plants, metal processing plants, power plants - both fossil and nuclear, and etc. During my college days we used virtually every noxious and toxic chemical and some of the radioactive and many of the heavy metals in our lab work. When I was a child I was a chemical "nut" and played with chemistry sets from the age of 7 on. I also had bottles of mercury and played with it with my hands. Later I worked in the Instrumentation industry where we made and used mercury manometer type flowmeters and the filling and calibration of these meters involved exposure to mercury. I have a goodly number of mercury amalgam fillings, and also was a smoker for a good number of years. Yet, in spite of all of the above, did I get PD? No, at least not yet. And of all my friends who were Chemical Engineers, Chemists, or workers in the industries that I mentioned above, only one had PD and he spent most of his working life in an oil refinery. However, my wife to whom NONE of the above experiences apply did get PD. This is certainly one very confusing disease! Jerry Gleason ([log in to unmask])