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Dear Alan and others interested, Your news reporter's sense of the precision of the numbers is correct. Linda Herman and I wrestled with this question, went back to the original epidemiological studies, and wrote a rather long (for the internet) article with almost the same title, which is posted at http://www.parkinsonalliance.net (click on news, although it is not exactly news). I hope you find it to be of interest. There are a number of things wrong with the way these numbers get tossed around. I will get flack on this, but here goes: The degree of (im)precision of an estimate is the first thing that is dropped when the estimate is cited. People tend to prefer the higher end of an estimate that is intended to be interpreted as a range of numbers and not a single number. Many people do not realize that the larger estimates that are cited are grand totals of estimates of pre-symptomatic + symptomatic un-diagnosed + diagnosed PWPs, and without realizing what such a grand total consists of, sometimes add to it an estimate of pre-symptomatic and/or un-diagnosed all over again! The number that matters the most is the estimate of national disease burden. Here I have seen just about everyone take the $25,000 per-annum average cost per PWP estimate that was computed by Duke University researchers for PWPs who are in treatment, and to get a national cost, multiply $25,000 by a total estimate of PWPs that includes even pre-symptomatic people who have no PD costs! Phil Tompkins Hoboken NJ age 60/dx 1990