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Charles T. Meyer wrote, among other things: >> I wonder if this survey is starting out with a false basic assumption. You seem to have come to the conclusion that there is an increasing number of younger people developing PD or an increasing incidence in the general population (adjusted for age). I am not aware of any data available to base that conclusion. If you or anyone else is aware of data to support that please post it. It probably then would implicate something in the environment and the considerable speculation over the past few days regarding the different factors would especially be worth further investigation. << Actually, it is _almost_ immaterial to me whether the incidence of PD among young people is increasing or has always been the same. Let me go over the motivation for the survey once more: the observation that it only occurs in a small fraction of young people (and not others) alone means that it not a general feature of old age. Since PD in young people must be caused either by poor genetics, a toxin in the environment, or a combination thereof, and there are documented cases where it does not occur in families, at least in some cases PD must be caused by a toxin in the environment. Now it is still possible that the toxin is only toxic in certain individuals, but my preliminary analysis of the data so far is that genetics are relatively unimportant at least for early onset PD. Now if the incidence of early onset PD is indeed increasing, then it does indicate that the toxin/s are something that people are becoming increasingly exposed to, and such a fact would be useful as it would rule out many "natural" possible PD toxins. >> It is certainly valuable to speculate on causes but let us not get into the trap of generalizing from our own changing perceptions. Lets keep up the exchange of ideas but remember they have to be scientifically validated in the end. For instance, we cannot rule in or out the history of drug use as << Agreed. But before doing a big, double-blind study on how many, say, green tomatoes early onset PD patients ate, general questions to lead intuition and scientific method must be made. Before bacteria were discovered people were probably very reluctant to sit down and talk about exactly what they have in common that could have given them an infectious disease. Now that we understand the causative agents in such diseases, our outlook on the matter is quite different. 100 years from now our children will probably look back at early-onset PD the same way. We have an obligation to them and as responsible humans in general to find what is causing early-onset PD so that they can have normal lines. This (the advance of technology) is what separates us from the other animals. Thanks for the feedback. Sincerely, Jason __________________________________________________________________________ Jason Taylor | "Doctor, don't cut so deep! Greenbelt, MD| That's the third operating table you've ruined this week!"