OT Michael J. Fox admits going off drugs for effect

The fact is Scott, the drugs control symptoms but is not a cure and eventually Parkinson's will kill you. If you are trying to move public opinion to go for a cure, of course you should stop taking drugs that merely control symptoms.

That was disclosed from the beginning, so where's the deception? This isn't like Rush Limbaugh pretending to be straight.

Anti-Parkinson's drugs can make people semi-catatonic, and Fox quit working full time because his kids preferred him off the drugs.

IT WAS NOT DISCLOSED IN THE "POLITICAL" AD

I do not fault Michael or Rush.

Michael seems to think (he has no evidence) that stem cell research will someday provicde a cure for his disease. He seems to accept that his particular instance of Parkinsons might not benifit from stem cell research, but he thinks that Parkinsons will benefit in the long run by stem cell research.

Rush appears to have problems using GOVERNMENT money to fund research that has no apparent benefit, and is fraught with ethics issues.

I have to side with Rush on this one. I have no particular problem with stem cell research, but I think there are more than enough private investors out there that can and should be tapped for funding before the government gets thrown into the mix. I understand that fertility clinics "create" hundreds of extra fertelized eggs that can be harvested for stem cells or simply discarded as being unuseful. Let's say my wife and I want a baby, but we can't get one on our own so we go to a fertility clinic for help. The clinic does its thing and we get a baby, or not. But the byproduct of their efforts is that there are extra eggs that are no needed, and are discarded in what I assume is a suitable manner. Alternatively, the extra eggs can be harvested for use in stem cell research. I'm okay with that, but I don't want government dollars to be used in the harvesting and subsequent research. If the research has any validity, there are plenty of investor dollars out there to fund the research.

Michael J. Fox, for example, would be a great spokesman to raise money for research efforts ... He could skip a dose of his meds, and go to pretty much any money pit and skim off several thousand dollars for stem cell research. Repeat as needed.

Who says he was off the drugs in that ad? You provided a heavily edited video link that showed he was off the drugs when he went to Congress. And he told Congress that himself.

And, so what if he was? Controlling some of the symptoms with medication is not a cure. Just because I have a headache doesn't mean I'm going to take an aspirin. If I have nausea, I don't necessarily take some Pepto-Bismol. Disease is what it is.

He has the disease, it gives him tremors and tics. All true.

Limbaugh, on the other hand, is cursed with being inhuman and un-Christian. There's no pill to cure him or to suppress the symptoms. Limbaugh could have chosen to take issue with the issues but he probably didn't have the faintest clue what the issue was, so there's really no point doing that. Limbaugh went back to his fallback plan. Mock someone. In this case he mocked someone with a progressive and debilitating disease.

What a class act Limbaugh is. Not.

You could take issue with the issues but you'd rather weigh in on MJF and whether or not he should be allowed to show symptoms of a disease in public. Well, God forbid we should let the public see someone suffering from a progressive and debilitating disease. It might offend their sensibilties and, worse still, get them to think about people less fortunate.

You know what happens after that... right... there's a real danger they'll vote Democratic.

I was wrong, and so were you. Fox was on medication when he made the ad.

Today, Fox said, to Katie Couric, that he was on his medication when the commercial was made, but the amount of resulting dyskinesia is always unpredictable.

How long does it take for the medication to kick in after ingested? What is the name of the meds if you know?

True. I was just pointing out what info I had.