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To all who wrote about pesticides: I want to add that I recently read somewhere that even herbicides can be possible culprits. We have always attributed Dick's PD to his use of a variety of herbicides and pesticides in gardening and lawn care. I can remember his spraying a couple of oak trees for some kind of leaf blight, and having the wind blow the spray right back on him. By the time he was diagnosed, in 1982, he had been using a lot of chemicals for about 15 years. The researchers model seems to be that it takes about 30 years of exposure to a toxin for it to result in PD symptoms. They're basing that on the 1917-18 encephalitis epidemic, I think. Those peoplel did generally take 30 years to develop symptoms. But as the MPTP story shows, an extremely potent toxin can actually result in effects overnight. I may be wrong, but I haven't heard of much being done in terms of looking at herbicides, pesticides, and other toxins that act much more rapidly to bring on PD. Does anyone have any additional information about the direction of research on exposures to toxins? Thanks - Margie Swindler cg for Dick, 52/15 [log in to unmask]