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On Sun, 6 Aug 1995, Fred Turner wrote: > Gary Zimmerman, Charles Meyer and others, > > Using the server in Finland to automatically process an anonymous message > would enable me to participate in any survey without much fear of > "discovery". I suppose the message relayed from such a server would then be > sent to an individual doing the "research". Would the only cost be the online > time, probably paid by the original sender. Would anybody be willing to > voluntarily take on such a project. I would share in the construction and > testing of a quesionnaire or survey. As a teacher I have had some experience > and hopefully could help avoid loaded questions and questions that don't > really get at what we would be trying to find out. Pehaps there are > "specialists" net members who would be interested. > Fred, your msg brings up some thoughts that have been aired here recently before: Namely, about a national registry of PD patients which would be of great help to track down etiological factors. There has been at least a passing interest on the part of some national organizations. The idea would be for either treating physicians or pharmacists to collect the data, so patient anonymity should not be a problem, and the coverage would be much broader than the selected few of parkinsonians that talk by computer. This list noted a recent try to establish a state-supported survey in Nebraska, which was defeated by the proposed collectors who objected to the added 'paperwork'. Clearly whoever does that work should be paid for it, and this brings up the question of economics. Let's suppose that each collector gets $10 per questionnaire, and that 50,000 new PD cases are recorded yearly. That's half a $mil per year, not counting the researchers who would analyze the data. That money would support several top-flight workers who might otherwise be doing research on some other phase of PD, so the question devolves to one of priorities, a tough call. Regarding your second message alluding to cognitive decline, now let's see, where was I? Joe