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I dislike these misleading ads but many of the comments on these threads about Fox's condition are gratuitous and contrary to fact.,

Yup - there is an amazing lack of knowledge about Parkinson's here, given the number of experts we seem to have! : ) The main one being the one you mentioned - that all he has to do is take medication and he will be basically normal. I'm guessing none of the people who proposed that know a Parkinson's sufferer.

It seems to me that Michael Fox could have just made an honest commercial. He could have cited his physical appearance as the ravages of Parkinsons and that he supported the RAT candidate because she would support govt/taxpayer funding for research beyond what the govt now already does. And if he really wanted to be honest he could have said he knows that embryonic stem cells cause tumors in rodents while adult cells have proven helpful in treating a number of diseases. Unfortunately, he chose to use his condition to promote the RAT political agenda, which includes the deception of the Missouri voters about the exact nature of the cloning bill they will be voting on. The voters in Missouri are the victims here. Shame on Michael Fox for allowing himself to be the instrument of that deception.

My boyfriend was diagnosed with Parkinson's in his early 40's. He had the disease for 12 years before he eventually died of an (allegedly unrelated) brain tumor. His whole life revolved around his routine for taking his meds -- trying to figure out how he could be mobile and relatively normal long enough to get back home before the symptoms worsened. There were times when it didn't work -- once we were stuck on a subway platform late at night and he basically couldn't walk or move.

He was a rugged looking, athletic guy otherwise. Strangers assumed he was drunk or somehow acting out and could be very hostile for no reason that I could see.

I became so familiar with the symptoms that I could recognize Parkinson's even before the individual knew what he had. (A dubious talent -- you can't go around telling strangers to get to a neurologist.) Janet Reno for example had that set of her jaw, sometimes called a mask, that is often an early indicator. If you look at old film of Fox you can see that way back he had a habit of flexing his jaw muscles, as if to loosen them up.

There may be new treatments for this disease in the near future, but so far embryonic stem cells have been a dead end, and I think Fox has been misled about their promise.