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Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses regarding the use of animals, fetal tissue, etc. Sometimes I like stirring up this sort of controversy because I think it's healthy and necessary to not only talk about this or that drug/treatment/symptom/etc., but also about the deeper ethical issues behind our assumptions and how this all makes us FEEL. When I went to that conference last month on the role of the environment in parkinson's disease, I was truly torn between my curious scientific nature (which is one aspect of me being a physicist) and my more emotional side (also a different aspect). The scientific side was fascinated by all the research and the minute details presented. The emotional side litereally felt the suffering of some of the animals pictured, because unlike me, they had no concept of why they were suffering, only fear because they were. I don't mean to imply that any of these animals were mistreated by any means, but knowing what I have to deal with every day makes me reluctant, to say the least, to force the same on anyone else, animal or human. That's why I will continue to emphasize the question, WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY do people get pd? WHY so many young people? WHY so much emphasis on "curing" pd rather than eradicating it off the face of the earth (especially if our own toxic creations are part of the problem)? Curing it via pallidotomies, fetal transplants, etc., is a necessary concern for those who are in the later stages. All these fancy high tech "cures", however, don't do ANYTHING to keep others from ever getting it in the first place. They may make some biotech companies very rich while they're curing us from something that could have possibly been prevented instead (and in the meantime other companies continue to profit off of that which may play a role in our disease - pesticides, heavy metals, etc. One's busy curing us while the other is killing us, and both profit while we lose.). The only real, absolutely permanent cure is to remove the CAUSE, and as I've said in one of my poems, "The problem isn't me! Fix the environment which we've ruined, for only that will fix me!" My problem with the animal testing isn't the testing itself (altho' it does upset me very much when presented with the reality of it), it's with this cycle I see us all in, that by narrowly focussing in on our own discomfort and disability, we take for granted or don't want to know, the bigger picture. Why did we kill perhaps dozens of animals to prove DDT "safe", only to find out it may not be so safe after all, since bald eagles and much other wildlife are dying off or being born deformed in some manner. Then when finally, God forbid, humans start getting sick, we then begin conducting further animal tests to prove it unsafe, and still more animal tests to find "cures" for diseases in which it may have played a role, all the while many lives human, animal, and pest are lost or deprived in some way because of something totally unnecsaary which WE'VE created! It makes no sense to me and seems like all of our emphasis on immediate relief distracts us from the real issue. I don't want some company making money off me by selling me genetically engineered pig's organs to replace my "defective" ones, that may have become 'defective' in part because some other industry wanted to continue making the same toxic chemicals it always has. aaaaagh! I think alot of it comes down to profit. The companies which produce pesticides, etc., are not the least bit interested in proving their source of revenue unsafe, so the burden's on us. Thus since the odds seem so overwhelming, and these other companies are luring us with immediate relief via their own source of revenue, which is derived from even further sacrifice of 'patented' life forms, we never are inclined to step back and look at how the whole picture fits together. We're up against a behemoth! I for one like a challenge, and will continue pushing this issue as much as I can. I'm not EVER giving in to pd or the system or whatever, that either unwittingly or out of negligence, has potentially contributed to this problem (i.e., environmentally triggered disease). I intend to keep fighting against pd's devastation in my life by meeting it head on!! (And hopefully minimize both my and other innocent victim's suffering). As the JeePee's said, "TO HELL WITH PD!" Wendy Tebay