The Triumph of Hope Over Science
By Mark Derr,
New York Times
| 02. 24. 2004
After I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease two years ago,
at the relatively young age of 52, I read everything I could
about the condition's usual "progression" — an
odd word for degeneration. The worst-case prognosis is grim:
a long slide into physical and mental incapacity.
That is not going to happen to me, I said, as I began measuring
my physical decline. I am young enough that I may be able to
benefit from advances in medicine, especially in brain research.
Maybe with new medications I would be able to put off taking
L-dopa, the best drug for Parkinson's but one that loses its
effectiveness over time. Surely better treatments will become
available, I told myself.
So why didn't I welcome the news that researchers in South
Korea were able to clone a human embryo and extract viable stem
cells from it? After all, one of the researchers said their
goal was "not to clone humans, but to understand the causes
of diseases" — and one of the diseases named most
often was Parkinson's. Scientists say they may one...
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