okie wrote:As for Limbaugh on Parkinsons, I have known several people with that, a couple very personally, and I tend to think Limbaugh had a very legitimate point, although of course his point is twisted and demagogued. First of all, medications can control the tremors for a tv spot, and I think the man may have used the tremors on purpose.
This has already been covered on this forum, but I'll hit the high points. People with Parkinson's have difficulty moving or talking easily. That is their unmedicated or undermedicated state. When they take the medication, they can move and talk easily, but they run the risk of visible tremors, called dyskinesia.
Obviously, when you make a TV spot, you want to be able to talk effectively. Fox has admitted that when he made the spot, he might have been overmedicated, but since hitting the elusive happy medium is part of the whole experience, he let the spot go. As Fox has said, with doctors concurring, it is not really possible to both look good and sound good at the same time-chances are the amount of medication you take will tilt you toward one way or the other.
On the issue of his recurring role on Boston Legal, I am a fan of the show and have seen most of the episodes with Fox on them. He plays a wealthy man who is dying of lung cancer. In these scenes, Fox has no tremors at all, but then he moves with difficulty and speaks haltingly and with effort. This fits the role he is playing, and obviously Fox is undermedicated on these episodes. So those who would want to use Fox's appearances on the show to prove he was "faking it" are out of luck-rather the Boston Legal appearances prove that Fox cannot be without tremors and speak and move fluidly at the same time.
Finally, there is the issue that Limbaugh is NOT the man to make observations about anyone in public faking anything. He was the one who was hanging out in Denny's parking lots to obtain huge amounts of painkillers. He was the one who most likely went deaf as a result of those painkillers, yet he still accepted all the sympathy from his loving fans for it. He was the one who pleaded out to doctor shopping for these drugs. If there is any public figure who has earned the right to shut up when the subject is pills, medications, prescriptions or diagnoses, it is Rush Limbaugh.
