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Robert Iocono and his Loma Linda team were to appear at 4:00PM est on AOL's
"CLINIC" on November 21. I was trying to get there when I saw AOL's
introduction. It stopped me cold, and I decided to write this instead. The
introduction, which some of you may have seen, reads as follows:
 
"Attorney General Janet Reno is the latest public figure to announce she has
Parkinson's Disease. She, like Mohammed Ali and others, join the large number
of those afflicted with the disease in this country. Yet, says neurosurgeon
Robert Iocono, leader of Loma Linda Hospital's famed Movement Disorder Team,
Parkinson's Disease is practically beaten as a disease. He points to
Pallidotomy, the surgical technique he helped pioneer, and to radical drug
therapies and strict diet as weapons available to Parkie patients."
 
I don't know whether the inaccuracies in this paragraph are the
responsibilities of AOL, of Dr. Iocono, or others on the Loma Linda team.
However, with "friends" like these, we have no need of enemies. There is no
surer way to turn off future funding for research on cures for Parkinson's
Disease, than to have a famed neurosurgeon in the field quoted as saying that
it is already practically beaten as a disease.
 
If Dr. Iocono is not responsible for this quotation, I wish that those on
this list who are close to him would ask him to disavow it publically. If he
really is responsible for the comment, I just don't know what to say.
 
While I'm on the subject, the article on Janet Reno in the November 27th
issue of TIME which arrived here today also confused the issue by the remark:
"..(Janet Reno) stressed that the condition is being controlled by medication
- and underscored the point by extending a rock-steady hand."  As all of you
know, control of the tremor does not mean that the condition (PD progression)
is controlled. It surely wouldn't hurt for those of you who can, to write
TIME and comment on the fact that their report is misleading. I certainly
will.
 
Jerry Gleason         ([log in to unmask])