Stem Cell Ads.

Tom Earp · #1 10-25-2006, 06:44 PM

Micheal Fox has done a few adds about Stem Cell for proponents and the Antis are not agreeing.

Rush Limbaugh disagreed and belittled him and then recanted his statement on His Show.

Oppinions?

macallan25 · #2 10-25-2006, 07:02 PM

Rush Limbaugh acted like a piece of shit. Plain and simple. What a tremendous asshole. Michael J. Fox is one of the classiest people in Hollywood.

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

Munchkin03 · #3 10-25-2006, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Earp

Micheal Fox has done a few adds about Stem Cell for proponents and the Antis are not agreeing.

Rush Limbaugh disagreed and belittled him and then recanted his statement on His Show.

Oppinions?

Michael J. Fox is awesome. He's done so much to get awareness of Parkinson's, which is considered by many to be an "old-man's disease," to the public--much in the way that Christopher Reeve did for spinal cord injuries.

But then again, Rush would know if someone wasn't taking his medication, wouldn't he?

KSigkid · #4 10-25-2006, 07:13 PM

Rush's comments were completely out of line. There really isn't an excuse for what he said, especially with all that Fox has done to get out awareness about the disease.

deadbear80 · #5 10-25-2006, 07:35 PM

Being from Missouri, where the ads are being shown, I have some thoughts:

#1: Claire McCaskill (the Democratic Senate candidate) should not have used MJFox in her ads. Why? Because it makes it seem like Amendment 2 (which would allow gov't funds to go directly to Stem Cell Research) is a partisan issue. It's not! If MJFox was used--it shouldn't have been by a political candidate but should've talked about why it's important to have bipartisan support (like the ads featuring former MO Republican Senator Danforth).
#2: Rush Limbaugh doesn't know crap about stem cell research. When he gets a disease that would be cured if people could do stem cell research, he'll wish he hadn't made those comments. He can go hang out with Sean Hannity and think that one over.
#3: Stem Cell Research in Missouri does NOT equal cloning. The idiots who are talking about that need to do their own research.

That is all.
/end rant.

DeltAlum · #6 10-25-2006, 10:20 PM

Note to Rush:

Open mouth -- insert foot.

Even if Fox is acting, (let's face it, it's possible) this kind of attack is dumb.

macallan25 · #7 10-25-2006, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Michael J. Fox is awesome. He's done so much to get awareness of Parkinson's, which is considered by many to be an "old-man's disease," to the public--much in the way that Christopher Reeve did for spinal cord injuries.

But then again, Rush would know if someone wasn't taking his medication, wouldn't he?

True......and alot of times Fox doesn't take his medication when making speeches or giving presentations about the research.

AlexMack · #8 10-25-2006, 10:41 PM

Michael J Fox was not acting during the ad. The medications he takes causes the jerks and spasmodic movements you saw. A parkinson's tremor looks like the shake of an old man's hand, very slight.

Rush is a tool and yet again proves that talking heads should not be allowed to comment on science.

CutiePie2000 · #9 10-25-2006, 11:04 PM

I so agree, ariesrising.

And in other news, I am going to a Figure and Fitness show at the "Michael J. Fox Theatre" on November 18th. His former HS, Burnaby South SS built and named a live theatre after him. YAY!

macallan25 · #10 10-25-2006, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by centaur532

Michael J Fox was not acting during the ad. The medications he takes causes the jerks and spasmodic movements you saw. A parkinson's tremor looks like the shake of an old man's hand, very slight.

Rush is a tool and yet again proves that talking heads should not be allowed to comment on science.

He has said on TV that he has not taken his medicine on occasion to add an extra dimension to his speeches........such as the one that has been seen on TV many times from a year or two ago when he addressed Congress..

AlexMack · #11 10-25-2006, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by macallan25

He has said on TV that he has not taken his medicine on occasion to add an extra dimension to his speeches........such as the one that has been seen on TV many times from a year or two ago when he addressed Congress..

I know that. However, I've already had an indepth discussion about this very subject on another forum. What you see in this commercial is typical of his Parkinsons medications. Parkinsons Disease alone will not cause dyskinetic movements.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/1...tor-after-all/

Quote:

the chorea that Michael J Fox has in that ad comes from chronic use of dopamine agonists in the context of Parkinson's. They're movements from the medicine, not the disease itself. Although he might have odd movements OFF of his meds, they wouldn't look like the ones in the ad. They'd look like the Parkinson's-like presentation of Muhammed Ali's Dementia Pugilistica.

In addition, those movements are hard to imitate accurately because they stem from circuits between the basal ganglia and cortex that you can't just turn off or on. Those aren't volitional circuits. There is little chance he was acting, and if he was, he could only accentuate slightly movementse already had. In other words, this is as tragic as it looks.

http://www.pdf.org/AboutPD/med_treatment.cfm

Quote:

Carbidopa/Levodopa (Sinemet) Levodopa is a substance that is converted into dopamine by an enzyme in the brain. It is then released by brain cells and activates dopamine receptors allowing for normal function of the movement control centers of the brain. Forty years after its discovery, levodopa remains the most effective medication for Parkinson's disease. In fact, 70 to 80 percent of treated Parkinson's patients are on levodopa therapy. Levodopa is the gold standard by which all treatments for Parkinson's are measured.

Levodopa combined with carbidopa (or Sinemet) represented a significant improvement in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. The addition of carbidopa prevents levodopa from being converted into dopamine in the bloodstream, allowing more of it to get to the brain. Therefore, a smaller dose of levodopa is needed to treat symptoms. In addition, the nausea and vomiting often associated with levodopa treatment is greatly reduced by the presence of carbidopa. Unfortunately, with increased dosing and prolonged use of levodopa, patients experience other side-effects including dyskinesias (spontaneous, involuntary movements) and "on-off" periods when the medication will suddenly and unpredictably start or stop working.

(Bolding by me.)

The replacements for the L-Dopa therapy can cause hallucinations, so Fox would either have to jerk spasmodically in front of congress or hallucinate. It does not surprise me that he did come off his medications in order to address them. However, that's not the issue at hand.

RACooper · #12 10-26-2006, 09:18 AM

The ads, and of course Rush's a**hole comments, were the major topic of discussion at the opening/launch of the new McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine yesterday ~ a place specifically built to advance research in the fields of stem cell therapy, gene therapy and tissue engineering. I can easily say that all of the 200+ researchers were supportive of Fox's efforts, an disgusted by Rush... which is about the only part of the conversations that I could even remotely follow

At least there was Champaign and OJ...

Other than that - an outright ban on stem cell research is profoundly stupid, and extremely damaging to medical research and advancement.

Drolefille · #13 10-26-2006, 09:20 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong centaur, but if he does NOT take his medicine he can actually lock up where it would be almost impossible to speak or move. Especially not quickly. If he in fact chose to not take his medicine while speaking in front of a group he risks a more dramatic demonstration of the effects of Parkinsons because he'll just stop functioning. So if he WAS moving, it's the medicines.

If you watched him on Scrubs (playing an OCD doctor) you could still tell even though they have multiple takes and angles. And there he was acting as a doctor without twitches.

MysticCat · #14 10-26-2006, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariesrising

Like Rush Limbaugh's an expert on NOT taking drugs.

My thought exactly.

AlexMack · #15 10-26-2006, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MysticCat

My thought exactly.

I heart this thread because it's a carbon copy of the other thread I read. Except no uber-conservative has barged in, defending Rush, quoting Ann Coulter and spewing out the futility of embryonic stem cell research yet. We'll give it some time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Correct me if I'm wrong centaur, but if he does NOT take his medicine he can actually lock up where it would be almost impossible to speak or move. Especially not quickly. If he in fact chose to not take his medicine while speaking in front of a group he risks a more dramatic demonstration of the effects of Parkinsons because he'll just stop functioning. So if he WAS moving, it's the medicines.

If you watched him on Scrubs (playing an OCD doctor) you could still tell even though they have multiple takes and angles. And there he was acting as a doctor without twitches.

This I don't know. I've only recently come into knowledge about Parkinson's and the treatments. I am a huge medical nerd so any info I can gather pleases me.