Get involved
Parkinson's patients can call the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, (866) 519-1795 or send an e-mail to peg@ph.ucla.edu. More information about the study is at www.ph.ucla.edu/peg/.
The Tulare-Kings
Parkinson's Support Group meets 10:30 a.m. the first Friday of every month
at Visalia United Methodist Church. Information: 627-1660. The Valley
Caregiver Resource Center offers free advice, support groups and referrals
for relatives of people with brain impairments such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Information: (800) 541-8614.
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It's the not knowing that bothers Mary Dickerson.
After losing her husband of 46 years to Parkinson's disease, the question of how it happened is what remains.
"We just don't know. It could be hereditary,
plus his work as a vet, plus the physical damage," she said of an injury
he sustained falling from a hay loft in his youth as a possible factors that
caused his brain cells to quit producing enough dopamine. Dickerson, 68, isn't sure why her husband,
Bob, developed Parkinson's, and she's hoping the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences' study will eventually answer that question. Ultimately,
though, she's hoping for a cure. But a cure will only come from research that depends largely on Valley residents' participation.
The National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences will spend $20 million on a four-year study to explore links
between Parkinson's, environment and genetics. It's the first large, federally
funded effort and a collaboration between the University of California Los
Angeles' School of Public Health, UCLA Movement Disorder Clinic, UCLA Center
for Brain Genetics and health-care providers in Kern, Fresno and Tulare counties.
On the study's Web site, researchers say
there's a higher occurrence rate for Parkinson's in rural communities than
in metropolitan areas. Animal and human tissue studies "suggest some pesticides
are able to kill brain cells that produce dopamine, the substance that Parkinson's
patients' brains lack," the site states. "Everybody is wondering why that is the
case," said Dr. Beate Ritz, one of the study's lead researchers and the director
of the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Program at UCLA. "There's
hypotheses that it's the air, the water or the soil, but nobody really knows
whether it's true." The study will try to determine if there
really is increased occurrence of Parkinson's in rural areas and what the
environmental and genetic factors exist. "Then we can actually warn people about it," Ritz said.
Researchers have briefly looked into agricultural
chemicals and well-water contamination as possible causes, but findings have
been "far from conclusive." Bob Dickerson grew up on a farm in Ohio
and started working in 1959 as a dairy veterinarian in the Visalia, Tulare
and Tipton areas. He and his wife, now a retired special-education teacher
from Tulare Western High School, started the Tulare-Kings Parkinson's Support
Group after he was diagnosed. An operation in 1999 to implant deep-brain
stimulators gave the couple "three more good years," Dickerson said. The
operation was experimental at the time but has since been approved by the
Food and Drug Administration. Although Dickerson eventually lost her
husband to Parkinson's, she hopes researchers can help others. A speaker
from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is expected
to visit the support group with information on the study. "Ultimately, prevention or a cure would the goal," Dickerson said.
Volunteers are needed though, she said.
"For a while, people are hoping they don't have it," Dickerson said.
But she's optimistic that Parkinson's patients will be participate in the research.
"Don't hide it and don't fight your neurologist," Dickerson said. "Do everything you can to help."
Originally published Tuesday, April 8, 2003
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