Talk:Michael J. Fox

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There seems to be links to this page from sources that clearly refer to Michael Fox (born 1921) not Michael J. Fox (born 1961). See link below: http://boldandbeautiful.com/bb/main/castofactors/fox_michael/index.html


Contents

[edit] Citizenship

For Michael J. Fox? Canadian? American? Both? Sources? Anyone? I would like to leave a thought for Michael J. Fox. I have started using Stem Cell Inhancment and have seen an inprovement in my eyesite and the healing of my back problems that have pleged me for 28 years. This is avalable on line at stemtech healt sciences.com. If all else is failing this may help Michael. I really enjoy his movies and don't like to see Michael go through this if Stem Cell inhancemnet will help. Thanks Warren

Hi there

Here is one source NNDB and Michael's profile --alfiboy 05:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's another source Michael J. Fox Becomes American Citizen

[edit] First TV series

Fox's first regular role on a TV series was not "Family Ties." I think it was a show around 1980 or so called "Palmertown USA" or something like that -- maybe set in the depression or the 1940s? Anyone know for sure? The series lasted one season or less, as I recall.

[edit] Just one question for Michael, Did he live in a home that had been treated for termites,in the from 1972 through1987,because dieldrin and aldrin were used?

75.22.32.134 05:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)Steve Mitchell sodellmitch@hotmail.com I would love to ask this of Ali also. Did michael live in a home that had been treated for termites from 1972 to 1987?

Rotenone? --PaulWicks 17:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

He has recently been featured in a political ad for the Missouri Democratic candidate Claire McCaskill requesting support for stem cell research Youtube ad. First time post on wiki.... would this even belong on his page at all? Rehcamretsnef 06:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


Kyaa, I disagree with the statement that we can tell that his condition has worsened based on a tv series and a commercial advocating a pov. The TV is edited, they could have waited to film him on a "good day" to portray a certain story line, we don't know whether the medication he's taking is different. The reaction to taking some PD medication is varies throughout the day. The bottom line is we don't know what his condition is, and this seems like original research. I think we should take it out. R. Baley 17:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

TV has harsher deadlines that a political ad. Fox, and his handlers, could have done as you said and waited for him to have less symptoms easier for these spots much easier than they could pick and choose when to film a tv episode. Kyaa the Catlord 05:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree in principle, however, I've seen boston legal, and it seems as if the story line with Fox appears at random. Given that he's not a central character, and somewhat of an icon (no less than some others on the show) I think they probably go out of their way to accomodate him (I wouldn't be surprised if they wrote the character espcially for him). But this is all speculation, just like it's speculation to discern his condition (or change in condition) from edited video. Btw thanks for fixing the category to fox's politcal ads. I think it's more accurate; and after reading stuff for a while my eyes blur over (and thanks to everybody that fixed my numerous typos).R. Baley 07:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, the ". . .although residing in Georgia," comment is not germane to his advocacy of an issue in MO (although it does subtley imply he has no legitimate interest there, imho). And does he live in georgia? The only thing I could find about where he lives indicates he lives in New York (Fall 2004 Stanford Medicine Magazine). Where Fox lives could be included elsewhere in the article if needed. R. Baley 17:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kerry Supporter?

Wasn't he also a vocal supporter of John Kerry's bid for the presidency in '04? And does anyone else find it ironic that the man who brought us "Alex P. Keaton" is a Democrat? -Grammaticus Repairo 00:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Ironic? No, since Alex P. Keaton is a fictional character, and Michael J. Fox is an actor. Unless, of course, you also find it ironic that the man who portrayed little white laboratory mouse is also an advocate of stem cell research. 68.13.244.167 03:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
OMG! Alex P. Keaton ISN'T a real person?!? Say it aint' so! I also wasn't aware that Stuart Little was a lab mouse, nor that there is a major controversy about stem cell research in rodents. Thanks for clearing that all up for me! -Grammaticus Repairo 22:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Then you apparently know very little about what is involved in human stem cell research or even the definition of "laboratory mouse". And an actor portraying a character that deviates from said actor's personality traits is hardly unusual. Would you also consider it ironic if Kevin Bacon publicly condemned child abuse? Oh lord, what a stupid arguement. I can't believe I'm actually participating in it. Good day, friend. 192.234.13.40 20:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I never claimed substantial knowledge concerning stem cell research, but I will note that the text of wiki article 'Stem Cell Controversy' does not contain the word 'mouse'. I also am not an expert on the clinical definitions of rodents used for medical experiments, but, if I recall correctly, Stuart was born into a human family living in New York City. So unless the terms 'mouse' and 'laboratory mouse' are interchangeable, I hardly think your criticism is valid. And, certainly, actors being actors is not just cause to use the descriptive term 'irony'. However, I hardly think that Kevin Bacon is particularly prominently known for his role in 'Sleepers' (nor was the movie a major part of pop culture in the mid 90's). On the other hand, 'Family Ties' (particularly the character of Alex P. Keaton) WAS an extremely popular show and is arguably a significant piece of pop culture. In fact, the wiki article itself proclaims that "Alex is most famous for being an extremely conservative Republican" and that "Ronald Reagan once stated that Family Ties was his favorite television show." And, yes, this is a stupid argument. I'm sorry that so many of you seem to have a problem allowing for the posibility that someone else might have a different sense of irony than you yourself do. Interesting that nobody has supplied any additional information about his involvement in the Kerry campaign, yet a perceived misuse of the word 'irony' is cause to 'contribute'. -Grammaticus Repairo 00:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey, from the looks of it you were the one that brought up the subject of irony. If you wanted to start a legitimate high-brow intellectual "let's all read The Atlantic Monthly"discussion about Michael J. Fox's support for John Kerry, then you should have said so. But since you didn't and opted to start a stupid arguement instead, we'll just poke fun at your strange logic. Like this. I personally find it ironic (and downright offensive) that Michael J. Fox played the time-traveling Marty McFly when, in fact, Michael J. Fox has never actually participated in time-travel. He also tried to convince us that he was a slam-dunking werewolf (Teenwolf) and served in Vietnam (Casualties of War, though I suppose we've come to expect this type of behavior from Sean Penn). What a hypocrite, that Michael J. Fox. Next thing you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to tell us he didn't actually mow down 20 policemen with a machine gun prior to becoming the governor of California and that, in fact, his father was a police officer. Or was that your buddy Ronnie Reagan? Hell, I can't keep up. Oh, by the way, according to Wikipedia (the foremost authority on everything), "House Mouse", "Laboratory Mouse", and "Fancy Mouse" are all the common names for the species Mus musculus, and that human stem cell research utilizes murine cell cloning techniques. Ha! This is so much fun! Peace. --buck 02:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Your logic is absoultely unassailable. War. -Grammaticus Repairo 02:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Problems

I don't edit pages that I don't follow, so I'm dropping a note here. Fox did not "open" the Ali Center in Louisville. Ali did. I live here. Fox was here for the opening, I'm sure he donated money, but Ali and his wife opened the center, raised the money, they are nominally in charge of the center. The center also has nothing to do with Parkinson, it is a "peace center" whatever that means (They're still figuring it out, it's doing horribly). The director is Michael Fox, but not the J.

Also, I find it odd that Spin City isn't noted in his career section. Rjstultz 02:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC) --Getaway 20:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] R. Baley's wholesale deletion of material

User Getaway on "Fox's BS" and Fox's "misinformation." I'm not getting into a revert war but this page and section are about Fox. The sub section should be kept small and pertinent. Peerhaps more Rush limbaugh info could be added to his page or to a stem cell advocacy page in general. It's not wholesale removal; it is for the most part removal of irrelevant info and POV. I will change back one more time and leave it to the rest of the wiki community to decide what to do from here. R. Baley 18:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I did not put in the article all of that information. Please check the edit history before you make a claim like that. Also, it has been pointed out by commentators that Fox has made a few misstatements and has gotten some information flat out wrong. So I provided citations to the criticisms that Superm401 requested. It is not concensus building when you not only remove all of my work, based upon your own personal opinion, but the work of other editors. You need to work on your consensus-building skills. If the article is going to go into great detail on the stem cell controversy then there needs to be the counterargument and you should not just simply remove the counterargument because you don't agree. Just because you disagree does NOT make it POV.--Getaway 19:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice title. There didn't appear to be many good revisions of late, and you're right, there had been some anonamous contributions (both pro and con) that were poorly sourced and opinionated. But I don't think this section should become a referedum on embryonic stem cell research, or on every quote Limbaugh has made on the subject (this material if properly sourced should go on other pages however, Limbaugh or Stem cell advocacy, with links). The whole of this article is about Michael J. Fox, and I think the subsection should be kept to the immediate facts that became such a big story, which ultimately made it notable. In the interest of fairness however, I think wiki should include Limbaugh's final conclusion on the matter (whether he apoligized, or stands behind every word; both have been reported).R. Baley 19:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Bottomline is that the anon editors you referred to are NOT the only editors that added material that you unilaterally deleted. Generally, Wikipedia has policy against one editor deleting large sections of material without consensus and discussion. As a matter of fact Wikipedia policy consider that to be vandalism. I don't believe that was what you intention was though. However, you are not showing a respect for the work of others. I would say that 80% of that material that you unilaterally decided to delete was put there by editors other than me. I restored it and I will restore again in the future unless you go through the process of explaining why you are making certain small changes, not blanket removals, because as I have stated over and over again, that is against Wikipedia policy.
Actually it is quite correct and accordance to policy for an editor to wholesale delete unreferenced material in a BLP. I don't know if the case but it's important to remember. Also, if you would check out Wikipedia:Vandalism you will find that it would not in fact be considered vandalism. Specifically "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." It is quite clear R. Bailey is editing in good faith. Whether his/her edits were good or bad I don't know but it's clearly NOT a case of vandalism so don't bother bring it up, you just confuse issues. Finally, if there is a major problem with the work, removing it justified. Whether or not you're showing respect is irrelevant. Again I don't know if this is the case however respect is not necessary for extremely poor work which has no merit for inclusion in wikipedia. And controversy articles such as this often in fact get a bunch of anonys POV-pushing and there is no need to show respect for such work. Nil Einne 12:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More unsourced/poorly sourced statements

Many conservatives, such as Ramesh Ponnuru, contended that the media reaction to Limbaugh's comments were disingenuous because they avoided a discussion of Limbaugh's specific comments about embyronic stem cell research but still cited Limbaugh's comments as "foolish" [8]

I don't think this statement should be here for a couple of reasons. (1) the source cited is mediamatters, which probably shouldn't be used (due to it's partisan nature) unless every other method of obtaining highly relevant audio/video has been tried (and failed). And even then only with caution, however I'm unaware of wiki's policy on this. (2) the source cited does not support the overall contention about "many conservatives", instead it supports only the quote from Ramesh Ponnuru. I plan to take out later unless supported with a citation.R. Baley 19:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

ultimately removed by user Eleemosynary, along with rest of paragraph. In the interest of building consensus, I agree that the paragragh was too meta to be relevant.R. Baley 21:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conflicting accounts?

I find it a bit intersting that Michael J. Fox clearly states that his motions in the advertisement are *not* Parkinson's symptoms, but symptoms of the medication (see interview with Terry Gross in which he claims medicative diskinesia) but the referenced expert on Parkinson's (Elaine Richman, a Baltimore neuroscientist) claims that, "[a]nyone who knows the disease well would regard his movement as classic severe Parkinson's disease. Any other interpretation is misinformed.."

So who's misinformed? Richman or Fox? 15:38 EDT 27 October 2006

I believe her comment was trying to address (albeit a bit clumsily) whether Fox was 'faking' or 'acting'. I don't think she was distiguishing between med induced symptoms and the actual Pd symptoms. As I understand it, the meds produce this kind of movement. And she probably recognized that Fox (as well as others with severe forms of the disease) would probably be on this type of medication as a matter of course (as much as possible, or can be tolerated by the patient, wrt the diminishing returns on the long term efficacy of the drug). Hope this helps.R. Baley 19:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe Dr. Richman was referring to the fact that dyskinesia doesn't occur in the early stages of Parkinson's but in later "severe" stages due to prolonged use of levodopa at higher dosages. Her comment doesn't contradict Fox's statement about dyskinesia. On the contrary, as someone who "knows the disease" after years of caregiving for a Parkinson's patient, I find it to be accurate. Also, I'd like to point out that the interview with Terry Gross occured in 2002. Fox isn't even talking about the "advertisement" Richman commented on which was recorded in 2006.

[edit] Editing Stem cell advocacy section

Since things have died down a little, I would like to start tightening up section 1.3 some. But I want to do it in a way that builds consensus and doesn't result in a lot of back and forth partisan activity. If you would like to help leave a note here as I can't constantly monitor this article by myself, and I refuse to be a lone "hall monitor"

Some things to do (in progress):
(1) clean up reference section. I'm done with this part, if anyone wants to look it over, please do R. Baley 09:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC) Descriptives need to be added to the links so that people know what they're going to (more than just the web address). Also some links go to websites with commentary, where possible we should try to link to the most concise material that supports the statement, with as little extra commentary as possible.
(2)I think that the statement from Fox's Lucky Man concerning his medication at the senate hearing should move down to # 1.3.2 Fox on Parkinson's disease. Please leave 'agree' or 'diasagree' plus 4 tildas here. Done, no comments left after 1 day. R. Baley 21:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

thanksR. Baley 19:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


With the elections over, can we clean up the commercial controversy section? To start off, I propose this section be removed:

In response to the Missouri ad, actors Jim Caviezel and Patricia Heaton, and athletes Kurt Warner, Jeff Suppan, and Mike Sweeney all participated in a counter-ad stating that Amendment 2 in Missouri, which related to government funding of embryonic stem cell research would be costly without producing results, legalize cloning, and that it would be harmful to women. However, the amendment passed and McCaskill was elected.

Four reasons: (1) I don't think it was "in response", this ad was already in progress. Fox's ad accelerated the production of it. (2)Fox's ad didn't say anything about ammendment #2, he endorsed one candidate and opposed her opponent. (3) TMI -this article is about Fox, the other commercial is barely related (4) breaks up article flow.

what does everybody think? R. Baley 22:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


I also propose removing the following sentence:

Contrary to many reports Limbaugh has not apologized.[1]

reasons: (1) breaks up article flow, (2)his actual quote is in the article, readers can judge for themselves how genuine the apology is (more of the quote could be included, but brevity is better), (3)a lot of msm outlets didn't report it this way, whatever the interpretation is.

I do think it would be OK, however, to include the mediamatters link/citation (with the other two links -CBS and The New Zealand Herald) following the quote in the prev. paragraph. R. Baley 22:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American child actors?

Is this appropriate, given that he became an American citizen later? --Steven Fisher 19:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  • And that he started his film career at 15, which is still a minor, but hardly a "child" in the same sense as Ron Howard or Shirley Temple, for example. Wahkeenah 22:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
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