# Michael J. Fox and his meds **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769 "2006-10-24T22:32:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/21 "2006-10-25T14:40:27Z")
No different than if you were lobbying for a treatment to hair loss and took off your wig to show you are bald. A wig, same as drugs in this case, are not a cure. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/22 "2006-10-25T14:55:36Z")
My husband and I were discussing this earlier today. I told him I thought it was fair play and he thought it was trickery, thinking that meds alleviate the symptoms completely. I didn’t know then what I know now about the medication and side effects but I’ll be sure to show this thread to him. ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/23 "2006-10-25T15:27:37Z")
I live in the Metro St Louis area and have seen this commercial over and over…I have no questions or concerns over this add other than wondering what the “hype” is all about. Mr. Fox has always, throughout his career as an actor and since as a man w/ PD, been a stand up kinda person. As many have pointed put, some of us grew up w/ him in our lives. He has not been overly political in any of this time. He has a position on Stem Cell research and he stated it in a commercial for a candidate with whose views he agrees. This whole thing (as many fellow dopers have pointed out) seems moot. MJF has a disease that medication may help lessen the outward effects of but, never the less, at this point, it is still an incurable disease and the symptoms change, making control with medication a bit tenuous. Heck, I have some cervical spine damage (minor) along w/ painful spasms, sometimes medication helps…other times, nada. Rush is a windbag and lives to stir the pot; this has been proven over and over and over…. ymmv, tsfr ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/24 "2006-10-25T16:08:27Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] No different than if you were lobbying for a treatment to hair loss and took off your wig to show you are bald. A wig, same as drugs in this case, are not a cure. [/QUOTE] Excellent analogy. May I steal it? ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/25 "2006-10-25T16:52:15Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] Couldn’t the symptoms have progressed in the four or five years since the book was written? [/QUOTE] Oh, almost certainly. He appeared on television a couple of years ago (Scrubs, in 2004), and while he seemed fairly steady while he was on camera, there was no doubt that he was struggling at some points for control. I think the point that he can’t be on doses on the medication that control the symptoms all the time is a good one. As another poster noted, rather than exaggerating his symptoms, he just shifted them from private time to public time. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/26 "2006-10-25T17:07:15Z")
It should probably be mentioned that some of the movements I see in Fox are actually sde effects of the medication itself rather than symptoms of the disease (particularly the serpentine motions, and I’m pretty sure the meds can cause trembling too). If he was off his meds, he wouldn’t be doing that sideways, twitchy thing at all. That’s caused by the meds not the PD. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/27 "2006-10-25T17:19:32Z")
[QUOTE=ThisSpaceForRent] […]I have no questions or concerns over this add other than wondering what the “hype” is all about. Mr. Fox […] has not been overly political in any of this time. He has a position on Stem Cell research and he stated it in a commercial for a candidate with whose views he agrees. […] Rush is a windbag and lives to stir the pot; this has been proven over and over and over…. [/QUOTE] Agreed. Also, as a Missourian, Rush may be particularly supportive of Sen. Talent, the Republican Fox spoke out against. I wouldn’t think Rush could possibly resist slamming Fox given the circumstances. He plays dirty pool every day on the air, and if even one uninformed person votes for Talent because of Rush’s rant, I’m sure he feels justified. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/28 "2006-10-25T17:35:32Z")
You have to compare stem cells to current treatments. YOU CANNOT COMPARE THEM TO NO TREATMENT. Arguments that pills don’t help much, that they have many side-effects, that many don’t have access to them. Those are good arguments! Many other things which have been said are not. A lot of you are having just blank emotional responses of “Rush is a douchebag, Go helping diseases.” That is not intellectually honest or a good way to debate. Perhaps Limbaugh didn’t understand that for MJF not taking meds doesn’t cause too much difference. Perhaps it does, in which case it matters. However, shame on you for even SUGGESTING that criticism such as his should not be brought up! ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/29 "2006-10-25T17:42:03Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] You have to compare stem cells to current treatments. YOU CANNOT COMPARE THEM TO NO TREATMENT. Arguments that pills don’t help much, that they have many side-effects, that many don’t have access to them. Those are good arguments! Many other things which have been said are not. A lot of you are having just blank emotional responses of “Rush is a douchebag, Go helping diseases.” That is not intellectually honest or a good way to debate. Perhaps Limbaugh didn’t understand that for MJF not taking meds doesn’t cause too much difference. Perhaps it does, in which case it matters. However, shame on you for even SUGGESTING that criticism such as his should not be brought up! [/QUOTE] Mush Windbag is still a douche. Perhaps if he didn’t understand the effects of the drugs he shouldn’t have blathered on about it. His behavior was inexcusable, as per usual. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/30 "2006-10-25T17:57:43Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] Mush Windbag is still a douche. Perhaps if he didn’t understand the effects of the drugs he shouldn’t have blathered on about it. His behavior was inexcusable, as per usual. [/QUOTE] The only thing I have ever appreciated about his shows is this: If he pisses me off enough to argue with him, then atleast I am thinking for myself… And I used to listen to him occasionaly (much as I did for O’reilly) for just that… if he can get a few people thinking, argueing even, over various points, then what he does is actually a service to some degree. I do wish, however, that he would atleast attempt to have an informed opinion before stating such obvious attacks and slander… but that will likely never happen. As for Mr. Fox… I have the utmost respect for him, and hope that his efforts to educate others are not in vain. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/31 "2006-10-25T18:03:00Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] You have to compare stem cells to current treatments. YOU CANNOT COMPARE THEM TO NO TREATMENT. Arguments that pills don’t help much, that they have many side-effects, that many don’t have access to them. Those are good arguments! Many other things which have been said are not. A lot of you are having just blank emotional responses of “Rush is a douchebag, Go helping diseases.” That is not intellectually honest or a good way to debate. Perhaps Limbaugh didn’t understand that for MJF not taking meds doesn’t cause too much difference. Perhaps it does, in which case it matters. However, shame on you for even SUGGESTING that criticism such as his should not be brought up! [/QUOTE] Mush Windbag is still a douche. Perhaps if he didn’t understand the effects of the drugs he shouldn’t have blathered on about it. His behavior was inexcusable, as per usual. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/32 "2006-10-25T18:06:25Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] You have to compare stem cells to current treatments. YOU CANNOT COMPARE THEM TO NO TREATMENT. Arguments that pills don’t help much, that they have many side-effects, that many don’t have access to them. Those are good arguments! Many other things which have been said are not. [/QUOTE] And what YOU don’t seem to see is that there’s a major distinction within the term “treatment.” It’s been posted here, but you evidently missed it. The drugs and other current treatments address the symptoms of the disease, they do nothing to the underlying causes. There is hope that stem cell research can CURE the disease. That is something entirely different. That is why it is possible to compare some sort of stem cell “treatment” to either not taking drugs or taking drugs, because it is a cure versus a paliative or mediating substance. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/33 "2006-10-25T18:11:42Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] It should probably be mentioned that some of the movements I see in Fox are actually sde effects of the medication itself rather than symptoms of the disease (particularly the serpentine motions, and I’m pretty sure the meds can cause trembling too). If he was off his meds, he wouldn’t be doing that sideways, twitchy thing at all. That’s caused by the meds not the PD. [/QUOTE] Yeah, some medications do cause odd side effects of their own, but there definitely can be a whole lot of twitching and shaking going on if the Parkinson’s patient doesn’t take their medication. I can tell a big difference in my Dad when he does and doesn’t take his medication on time- he’s more or less normal when he does, and he shakes like hell when he doesn’t. He isn’t as bad off as Fox yet, so he’s lucky. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/34 "2006-10-25T18:15:34Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] Perhaps if he didn’t understand the effects of the drugs [/QUOTE] Rush knows a lot about the effects of drugs. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/35 "2006-10-25T18:18:26Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] However, shame on you for even SUGGESTING that criticism such as his should not be brought up! [/QUOTE] I’d say the shame is on those who blindly listen to that hypocrit, Rush, who’s using hearing aids to _conceal_ the damage he brought on himself by his illegal drug use that he doesn’t want known. If it’s okay for Rush to use accomodation to hide his own disabilities because he _doesn’t_ want them talked about, why would it not be okay for somebody else to forego accomodations so that he _can_ talk about his disabilities? I say, if Rush wants Michael J. Fox back on his meds so that no one can see that Parkinson’s is an awful disease, then we should be able to yank our Rush’s hearing aids when he goes on his radio show so that everyone can hear what being a drug addict can do to you. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/36 "2006-10-25T18:18:32Z")
Arguing that a cure is incomparably better than an effective treatment is just OCD. A vague notion that one path to being free of symptoms is infinitely purer and more virtuous than the other. A cure can be directly compared to a mere treatment. Of course almost always treatments have extra costs, ineffectivities, side-effects, etc. So those are the results of your comparison. However, comparing a cure to no treatment, and even claiming that that’s the way it should be done, is ridiculous. It is just a dishonest way to advance agendas that you may not have a good basis for holding. Again, I’m not saying one way or another how the treatments or lack thereof stack up in this case. But many of your are rejecting the principle, and that is flat-out wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/37 "2006-10-25T18:22:31Z")
> [@](#): > > If it’s okay for Rush to use accomodation to hide his own disabilities because he doesn’t want them talked about, why would it not be okay for somebody else to forego accomodations so that he can talk about his disabilities? Yes, the two wrongs make a right argument. I don’t disagree with you, in fact. It is why all the way in my first or second post I said that when it comes to politics (and media and society), MJF taking or not taking his meds doesn’t affect one way a broken system. It’s a pitty. However, it is still up to us to call dishonesties wherever we see them. Even if it is merely to keep score. ---
**Author:** ![midwestgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@midwestgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/midwestgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/38 "2006-10-25T18:30:13Z")
If Rush making such a callous, ignorant statement is what it takes to once again spotlight the way America is turning its back on science, then I’m all for it. I’d like to see ALOT more commercials addressing embryonic stem cell research. Since conservatives like to make their followers think embryonic stem cell research is akin to harvesting organs from a fetus ripped from a woman’s womb, maybe we need commercials illustrating just HOW small these embryos are, the size of a speck of dust, a cluster of cells. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/39 "2006-10-25T18:30:51Z")
> **[Damn Spots](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/damn-spots/?index=1)** > > Damn Spots > [@](#): > > Limbaugh subsequently stepped back from the comment. “All I’m saying is I’ve never seen him the way he appears in this commercial for Claire McCaskill,” he said. “So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances.” > [@](#): > > Here’s what William J. Weiner M.D., professor and chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, told the New Republic on the matter: > What you are seeing on the video is side effects of the medication. He has to take that medication to sit there and talk to you like that. … He’s not over-dramatizing. … [Limbaugh] is revealing his ignorance of Parkinson’s disease, because people with Parkinson’s don’t look like that at all when they’re not taking their medication. They look stiff, and frozen, and don’t move at all. … People with Parkinson’s, when they’ve had the disease for awhile, are in this bind, where if they don’t take any medication, they can be stiff and hardly able to talk. And if they do take their medication, so they can talk, they get all of this movement, like what you see in the ad. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769/40 "2006-10-25T18:37:31Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] However, comparing a cure to no treatment, and even claiming that that’s the way it should be done, is ridiculous. It is just a dishonest way to advance agendas that you may not have a good basis for holding. [/QUOTE] In the face of all the evidence that the symptoms Fox displayed were evidence that _he was taking his medication_ and not the other way around, will you concede this argument has no merit? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-j-fox-and-his-meds/377769.md?page=3)