. >> living with parkinson's disease-- a story frontline correspondent dave iverson and his family know firsthand. >> i hadn't thought that it would happen, but it has happened. >> parkinson's affects a milln americans. >> i have a mindset that i am going to... not let this blankety parkinson's get me down. >> and it's been front and center in the debate over embryonic stem cell science. >> this bill would support the taking of innocent human life, so i vetoed it. >> you know, when you're talking about the potential to heal and cure so many and it not going forward, it pissed me off and i wanted to do something. >> michael j. fox. >> now the politics have changed, but the quest for a cure continues. >> how close are we? we're a lot closer than we were ten years ago. a lot closer. >> tonight ofrontline, correspondent dave iverson tracks the pursuit of parkinson's and his own family journey. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and cather

. >> tonight ofrontline, correspondent dave iverson tracks the pursuit of parkinson's and his own family journey. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed building a more just, rdant and peaceful world. and by reva and david logan, committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by tfrontline journalism fund, supporting investigative reporting and enterprise journalism. >> narrator: it isn't dramatic. it's a disease of inches: a hand starts to shake; a step becomes a shuffle; life in gradual slow motion. parkinson's arrives without fanfare. you're jogging at the gym one day, and you notice that one arm isn't swinging the same as the other. in time, other signs accumulate: a leg starts to tingle, a finger trembles. none of it seems like a big dea