My reaction upon seeing this is much the same thing I felt when Sen. John Edwards told a crowd that if they voted for the Kerry/Edwards ticket people like Christopher Reeve would rise up out of their wheelchairs and walk again because Edwards supported embryonic stem cell research which President Bush opposes. It's a fraud, and I'm afraid this ad is too. No amount of votes for McCaskill are going to cure Parkinsons or any other disease. No research has yet to show that stem cell research will even have the ability to cure such diseases. This ad is demogoguery in its highest form - using a victim to infer things which simply cannot be.
In a strange convergence of stories, this was in the news today:
Injecting human embryonic stem cells into the brains of Parkinson's disease patients may cause tumors to form, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.
Steven Goldman and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York said human stem cells injected into rat brains turned into cells that looked like early tumors.
Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers said the transplants clearly helped the rats, but some of the cells started growing in a way that could eventually lead to a tumor.
Like most research it's two steps forward and one step back. Will this research ever develop into something that could really help people? Nobody knows, but just as we're told that we must do something to stop global warming just in case it's really happening, we're told that we are heartless beasts if we refuse to fund this research even if there's no evidence that it will work.
On Rush's show today he speculated that Fox might have been enhancing his physical problems a bit for the camera (he is an actor, after all), and some emailers even suggested that in the past Fox has eased up on his medication when he has to testify before Congress or appear on TV in an effort to accentuate his affliction. I haven't seen him lately in other venues so I don't know what his current condition is, but I personally doubt either of those are true. The spasms we see in the ad are likely genuine. Still, even if everything is on the up-and-up regarding Fox's condition, is it proper to trot him out like some sort of sideshow freak just to stir up emotions and generate another vote or two?
I like Michael J. Fox. I always enjoyed him as Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties and he had some good movie roles, and I was saddened for him when I heard about his illness. As a person, I'm sure he's a peach. But allowing himself to be used in this manner for partisan political purposes is beneath him as a person and as a spokesman for victims of a terrible disease.
UPDATE: More thoughts on the ad.
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