Stepping Closer to a Parkinson's Cure

If there is any silver lining to this dire funding picture, it is that it provides extra motivation for Unity walkers.

Parkinson's patients and their supporters from across the country and around the world rallied...

Parkinson's patients and their supporters from across the country and around the world rallied Saturday in Central Park for the 14th Annual Unity Walk. The event brings together support groups and organizations serving People with Parkinson's (PWP'S).

(ABC News)

"The Unity Walk is a day for the entire Parkinson's community to come together," Walton said. She adds that instead of being in competition with other groups (e.g. the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Parkinson's Disease Foundation and the Parkinson's Action Network), the Parkinson Alliance distributes the money raised through the Unity Walk to the top Parkinson's organizations -- with the stipulation that the funding must go for research.

Small Step for Parkinson's, Giant Leap for Other Disorders

The benefits of a cure would reach far beyond Parkinson's patients, says John H. Morrison, chair of the Government and Public Affairs Committee for the Society for Neuroscience. He agrees with other experts who believe Parkinson's will be the first neurological disease to be cured.

"As soon as we solve one neurodegenerative disorder, it's going to give us huge insights into all the others, including Alzheimer's," said Morrison, who was in Washington last week lobbying for an inflation-proof increase in the NIH budget.

He adds that the social costs associated with roughly 1½ million Parkinson's patients -- plus an estimated 5 million Alzheimer's patients -- will only intensify as a longer-living population confronts disease associated with the aging brain. "It could have a crippling effect on our society," Morrison said.

But money isn't the only challenge.

"More money will be put to good use in battling Parkinson's," said Dr. Hamilton Moses III of the Alerion Institute.

But Moses believes progress would quicken if the biomedical research community also focused on increasing its productivity. "Productivity is often an unfamiliar concept to the scientific researcher," he said.

Carol Walton agrees; so does Katie Hood, CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Since 2000 that foundation has funded more than $120 million worth of Parkinson's research projects, and Hood says it's not business as usual.