[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
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?
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure this has been established. In reading his book, Fox’s own descriptions of his symptoms contradict this. In television and public appearances in the last few years, he seems to be able to medicate to extent that he has fairly good control for at least short periods.
But it has been four years or so since the book was written, and it’s been a couple since I saw him on television. It may well be that his symptoms are now worse, and even with the medication, that is the best he gets. I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s firmly established that the shaking he exhibited in the add was from the absence or the presence of medication.
[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
The point is that we have treatments. He can’t just stop using those treatments and go on tv and say “vote for stem cells.” If stem cells were the only way of treating these diseases, and if everyone who had those diseases looked like Michael J Fox without meds… the debate would be a whole different animal entirely.
However, that is not the case.
That’s the point.
[/QUOTE]
But even assuming that it is true that he can control the symptoms for a time via the meds, I do know that in his book he wrote about not being able to always control them. For years, he hid away during those times so no one would know. After going public, he felt free to use the medication as he, his family, and his physicians thought best not just to hide the symptoms when he was in public, but to give him the best overall quality of life, even if that meant being in public and “looking like a drunken sailor”.
So the way he appears in the add is a normal part of his life, even with the medication. Just because he may choose not to always display that in public doesn’t mean he doesn’t live with it on a daily basis. And my understanding is that almost everyone who had PD gets to the point that with or without medication they “looked like Michael J Fox without meds” on a regular basis.
That’s the point.
[QUOTE=col_10022]
Rush was basically saying “Oh come ON!!! Parkinson’s disease doesn’t really look like that, MJF was either acting or off his meds”
If Rush had just said “I think MJF was deliberately off his meds and its dirty pool to show the untreated effects of Parkinson’s when he would have virtually no symptoms if he took his medication” (I’m not sure if this is true or not). Then I would say, Rush you don’t understand Parkinson’s disease and I hope you never have to find out first hand. But no, he said MJF is lying and he called MJF a liar not because he knew he was lying but because it served his political purposes to do so. THAT’s what makes him a douchebag, not because he took a swing at some sacred cow.
[/QUOTE]
I couldn’t agree more. Rush doesn’t speak his conscience, you squeeze him and he burps the party line.
I still have the Michael J. Fox scrapbook that I created in high school, 20 years ago! I didn’t see the E! True Hollywood Story on him, but I have the episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio that he was on last year – I downloaded it from iTunes.