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Probably a misleading title but it leads me into something which has been
concerning me more and more in recent weeks as a result of reading messages
on this list.This was brought to a head by a recent posting from Berbado who
seems to have got himself and I hope I don't sound too critical thoroughly
confused on the subject of medication which is let's face it probably the
most important and potentially rewarding subjects dealt with on the list and
yet because of its mainly anecdotal character one of the hardest to evaluate.

What is certainly evident is that the bulk of advice contributions come from
subscribers who have had PD for several years or their PD is particularly
severe and also a lot of requests for advice are re worst case
scenarios.This I believe tends inevitably to promote an unbalanced view of
the disease because there is no input from the thousands and thousands of
sufferers who could be jogging along quite happily without any of the awful
side effects mentioned so frequently.If you look at the results from
independent clinical trials it is evident that the incidence of particular
side effects are much less prevalent than would appear to be indicated by
list 'gossip'

Also in the list one tends to hear  most noise from or about pd people with
difficult or intractible problems.

Having said all this I still think the list is great and required reading
for anybody seriously interested in this baffling disease but although  in
the past I have been active in promulgating its merits to the 'unconverted'
I am beginning to wonder whether there should be a 'HEALTH
WARNING'--'Reading this might confuse you and seriously damage your peace of
mind.Access denied to anxiety prone people'And when somebody from a National
PD organization said to me recently 'No we are not keen on giving out
information about the Internet as we have no control on what appears and
might appear to be endorsing the views or information put forward' I began
to wonder whether she was making some sort of valid point.?