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Sandy My name is Kay Messiter and I work for Parkinson's NSW in Sydney Australia. I am 45 and I have had PD for 12 years. My brother who is 48 has Schizophrenia - he was about 34 when we started noticing significant changes in his behaviour. Another interesting factor is that my parents were first cousins and I have since read material of young onset PD people's parents being first cousins. My mother always told me that they had permission to marry (I don't know who gave them permission and I never thought to ask) - I'm not sure who or what government department keeps track of these sorts of things! Anyway I have always felt that this is where my brother and I got the defective gene from. My brother was a heavy marijuana smoker for many years and as I'm sure you would be aware, it has now been proven that marijuana can cause schizophrenia. It is interesting that we were both roughly the same age at onset of PD and who knows if I had been a marijuana smoker perhaps I would have contracted schizophrenia - I hate PD but I would rather have that than Schizophrenia. I have heard of a number of other cases of siblings of PD people having Schizophrenia but as you mention, medicos and researchers don't appear to be too interested in this link but I feel as you do that there is definitely a connection. Kind regards Kay Messiter