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MM wrote: >It seems that a large number of PD's are searching their minds to determine >whether exposure to one or more chemicals out of millions out there might >have caused the disease. Of course, it is possible but not likely. Then >there are those who possibly attribute psychological causes to the disease. >Again, this is possible but not quite likely. And >I am a firm believer in government for many things like public health, >defense, or whatever the individual or small groups of individuals cannot do >alone. >Parkinson's Disease is not communicable and is not a threat to the public at >large. Whatever the purpose of collecting statistics on individuals with PD, >it cannot be knowledge to either alleviate, palliate, or cure the disease. >Collecting statistics on afflicted individuals may possibly be a useful tool >for the epidemiologist, but it could become a devastatingly dangerous tool in >the wrong hands, as witnessed by what the Nazis did to their own mentally >ailing citizens. The first statement is one of the reasons I believe the government registers MOST diseases - to try to find the commonalities so they can find the cause. It is rare to find a cure without knowing the cause. Currently the government registers tons of non-communicable diseases (cancer for example) for the same reason. Please give them some credit, we don't live in Nazi Germany. The statistics themselves won't give us the cure, but they will give some brilliant researcher out there a leg-up in finding the cure. $$$ for research is so slim these days that any help we can get/give a researcher will be that much more time/$$$ he or she can devote to the actual research and not the statistical gathering. I realize there is the potential for abuse and discrimination. However, I believe in today's society of ADA and Human Rights activism there is more of a potential for an increase of knowledge. Registry could give more clout to the cause as well. Non-afflicted people didn't start crying out about Cancer and HIV until the staggering numbers were revealed. The same can be true about Parkinson's Disease. Ticia Morgan Granddaughter of Marge (82/15) Sprint Mail: [log in to unmask]