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SCMP Reporter

NEUROLOGISTS are unconvinced by China's claims that paramount leader Deng Xiaoping has Parkinson's disease, saying the diagnosis may be a 'face-saving' alternative to admitting mental decline.

  Hong Kong doctors last week said the disease appeared to have become politically correct after being diagnosed in Mao Zedong, Marshal Ye Jianying, and other world leaders and film stars.

  Dr Richard Kay Li-chi of the Chinese University said the degenerative disease, which affected mobility and speech, was notoriously difficult to diagnose. Drugs could arrest its progress for many years and the mind was affected only in its final stages.

  'Deng's state of health could be attributed to a stroke or a host of other diseases,' Dr Kay said.

  'It's not nice to call a person senile. And Parkinson's has almost become respectable now that Mao had it. I understand the disease is quite widely diagnosed for party elders.

  'There are many diseases that can afflict a person that look like Parkinson's disease.

  'It is not politically acceptable to diagnose senile dementia or a series of strokes; Parkinson's is an easier term to accept. It may just be a face-saving diagnosis,' Dr Kay said.

  A Queen Mary Hospital specialist in Parkinson's disease, who asked to remain anonymous, said there were many diseases which displayed similar symptoms.

  'Even the world's top neurologists only make the correct diagnosis in about 70 per cent of cases. The only way to be sure is to examine [a person's] brain after death,' he said.

 The tell-tale signs may be there: Mr Deng's mask-like face, the stooping posture and periods of immobility are typical.

  A close ally of the patriarch, Yang Shangkun said recently: 'He hasn't been able to play bridge because his hands shake too much.'   Less than three weeks ago, sources close to Mr Deng said leading Parkinson's disease specialists had joined the paramount leader's medical team, said to comprise more than 20 Western and Chinese experts on 24-hour standby.

  But Dr Chan Yuk-wah, president of the Hong Kong Neurological Society, doubted this proved Mr Deng had the disease.

  'The number of pseudo-Parkinsonian cases I have seen have increased in recent years,' he said. 'These can be due to a certain type of stroke or even a hereditary tremor. There are many diseases which can be mistaken for Parkinson's.'  The disease, said to afflict one in 100 people aged over 60, has been diagnosed in many well-known figures including Hitler, Pope John Paul II, Katharine Hepburn and Harry Truman, as well as Mao and Marshal Ye.

  Mao's former doctor Li Zhisui, who treated the chairman until his death in 1976, said Mr Deng looked identical to Mao in his last days.

 'With Mao, one would have to question the diagnosis,' Dr Kay said. 'It could simply be the best way to explain away his symptoms.'   Mao was critically ill for the last two years of his life. Nearly 20 years on, there is still speculation about his state of mind in the last months of his life when several key political decisions were made. But the Politburo consistently denied claims that he was gravely ill.

  There is equal lack of clarity now. Mr Deng's daughter, Deng Rong clouded the picture even further last month, when she told The New York Times her father's health was declining 'day by day', saying he could neither walk nor stand.

  She later told The Weekend Australian : 'What I was trying to say is he was getting older and older . . . he does have problems with his legs.' 



Doubt cast on Deng diagnosis