MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FEBRUARY 2026

If you only read the first paragraph of this message – here’s what to know: 1.) PRO’s ‘Parkinson’s Today’ Symposium on February 7th with The Michael J. Fox Foundation is fully booked. If you didn’t reserve your spot, you can still watch the whole thing when we release the panel videos in mid-February. 2.) PRO’s annual Chocolate & Champagne Soirée is February 26th in Palm Springs – tickets are selling fast, more info in this newsletter.

Ok…if you got past that news dump, thanks for hanging in! I want to take a moment to highlight an issue that requires constant vigilance in our community – online and AI scams. For me, this just hit close to home – my dad got conned into donating to a fraudulent animal shelter last week. Luckily it was only $30, but I’ve encountered stories of people losing their life savings to sophisticated scammers, and the advent of AI videos and pictures makes it even easier for scammers to set their traps.

For my dad, the scam was perfect. He’s a dog lover and a video showed up on his Facebook feed of a veterinarian speaking desperately to the camera: his animal shelter is days away from running out of food. There are no other shelters in his city and the situation is dire. Cut to video of hungry, crying, tumbling puppies. “Can YOU donate $20, $30, or $50 today to keep these precious baby dogs fed for just a few more days? Without your support, these animals will starve.” Well, my dad doesn’t want any puppies to starve…hook, line, and sinker.

I knew it was fake when I saw the video – the vet’s mouth doesn’t quite line up with the audio. He never introduces himself by name and his white coat, lacking a logo, is pristine despite the filthy setting behind him. The videos of the dogs seem to waver – it’s hard to count how many dogs there are. In one scene, five dogs drink from a milk bowl that never empties.

Just this morning, I saw another AI scam – a promotion for Scandinavian grannies who make sweaters. In the image, the grannies all sit in a circle knitting, but none of them hold knitting needles and one, smiling dimly, simply holds a piece of string.

It’s subtle – just a general sense of “off” that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking. So the challenge is for you to look, every time. In the age of AI, we can’t trust an image at face value any more. But beyond that, your challenge is to investigate. In my dad’s case, the pet shelter had a website. I visited the website looking for a few key things:

Address & Contact Info – On PRO’s home page, you’ll see our physical address, two phone numbers, and an email. We make it very easy for you to contact us. That pet shelter seemed to exist outside of space and time (no address listed), but those Scandinavian grandmas had a P.O. Box in a province of China. Both are red flags.

Multiple Calls to Action – on PRO’s website you can donate, but you can also contact us, sign up for our newsletter, learn more, view our calendar, register for a free support group, read testimonials, etc. A website that offers one action and one action only, “DONATE”, is probably a scam.

Tax ID – PRO is a registered nonprofit charity #95-4304276. You can find that number everywhere – on our ‘donate’ page, on our emails, on all our print materials. If you want to make a donation to a nonprofit, make sure you find that Tax ID number first.

Hopefully we all know by now to avoid the Nigerian princes and that Elon Musk doesn’t really want us to invest in a top secret diamond mine. But the new age of AI allows scammers to produce realistic-looking videos quickly, build shell websites, and trick the masses into giving away smaller increments of money. They don’t need you to empty your life savings. They need a couple hundred people like my dad to hate the idea of starving puppies. They need a couple hundred people shopping for Christmas gifts to love the idea of handmade-by-Grandma Scandinavian sweaters.

Here’s my final – and maybe most important – tip. When in doubt, ask a young person in your life. We grew up with the internet. We edit images and videos for work or for our own private social media accounts. We know what’s possible and we know what to look for.

And we won’t judge you. I know exactly why my dad got scammed: he has a loving heart. In today’s internet landscape, that can be a liability. Stay safe out there, stay loving, but STAY ALERT!

Now read on for PATIENCE, PARTNERSHIP, AND PARKINSON’S: A CAREGIVER’S GUIDE TO EMOTIONAL HEALTH, PAIN IN PARKINSON’S: AN OVERLOOKED SYMPTOM?, WHAT YOUR STEP COUNT MAY REVEAL ABOUT BRAIN HEALTH, BACTERIA IN YOUR MOUTH MAY TRIGGER PARKINSON'S RISK, STUDY FINDS UNTREATED SLEEP APNEA DOUBLES PARKINSON’S RISK, PRO OUT AND ABOUT: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, and MEET THE PRO TEAM.

Until next time...

Eileen Lynch

Executive Director