Rush Limbaugh - "I'm learning a lot" About Complex Parkinson's disease

Let's come a little clean here. Forgive me for getting a little personal, and writing in the first person. My Parkinson's Info is a team that includes five individuals and some select sponsors that help us bring you quality information about Parkinson's disease. However, I do a good proportion of the writing, so I am going to go a little personal today.

I love good, constructive politics. I love thinking through political issues and what they mean to society. I don't really care who wins the argument, or looks good in the news at the moment. I love to think through arguments from many political and social perspectives. I don't agree with all ideas, and I have some pretty strong opinions on most matters. But, for some reason, I love to diplomatically discuss social issues with people who do not agree with me. I learn a lot. (If you disagree with me or us on anything, email us at mnilsen@myparkinsonsinfo.com. We want to think with you.) I usually find that my middle-class upbringing in suburbia with conservative Christian parents, created biases based on those experiences. Later in life I learned a whole lot making friends with people as I lived and worked in different circumstances.

For instance, I worked in a health care organization in New Jersey for a while. In the course of a day I worked closely with Jews, Italian Catholics, Blacks, WASPs, Puerto Ricans and a number of people from various backgrounds. I reported to a very wise physician from India. That is the way that New Jersey is. It is completely different from where I grew up. I got to know these people well, and sometimes we could talk about politics and social issues. While I am sure that I did not have perfect insight, I had enough to see why people had certain political and social convictions. I realized that most other people were already way ahead of me, and most of America is very good about relating to all sorts of opinions.

Although, I tend to find my biases somewhat on the conservative side, I do not particularly care for Rush Limbaugh. He tends to oversimplify too much in my opinion. However, when I was a college student, I used to listen to him quite a bit. I give him a lot of credit for daring to air a radio show that, in my opinion, helped radio listeners to snap out of a gullible fog, and think critically about the media. I also give him credit for outlining issues and setting up arguments that helped me to think through where I stand politically. Since I was in college, I was considering all sorts of ideas and their merits.

I also had a very liberal friend that gave Limbaugh credit for giving conservatives a voice. At that time in our country we had just experienced that Oklahoma City bombing; and, many Americans were concerned about the influence or threat of conservative militia groups. My liberal friend pointed out that Rush Limbaugh was a very acceptable alternative for conservative expression. He suspected that Limbaugh kept a lot of people out of militias by identifying with him politically.

So now, if I'm driving in my car, Sometimes, I will still tune in to Rush Limbaugh to see if he is discussing anything interesting. I realize that he is an entertainer; and, I suspect that he is more of an entertainer than a political activist. But still, I often find myself thinking that his arguments do not properly address the complexity of a situation.

Let's get back to yesterday. Rush Limbaugh made some very bad choices yesterday in a few seconds of his commentary about Michael J. Fox's recent political activities. His spontaneus and careless contents have revealed some of his flawed opinions before. (I use a little of Limbaugh-like speculation to wonder if he actually did this to create some good buzz for himself.) As an experienced media personality, he should know better than to speculate about someone's intentions and will to manipulate. He should also know that the media would thoroughly enjoy thrashing him - which it has done to an extreme.

"In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of his disease." said Limbaugh. "I've never seen him portray any of the symptoms."

Well, Limbaugh may not have seen Michael J. Fox in his Senate testimony, on the David Letterman show, or in the interview with Dateline, or delivering his commentary after CBS aired the movie "Saving Millie." He cannot watch and remember everything. We should not fault him for that. But, he should've done his research. Oh how the facts can help you - even when you're dying to speculate.

So, I am listening to Rush Limbaugh today (and he's tickled pink about all of us non-regulars listening today) because I want to hear where he takes the publicity that he ginned from his comments yesterday. He is blaming enthusiasm for embryonic stem cell research on politics. My interpretation of his comments today is that embryonic stem cells are a political issue to forward the liberal "sacrament" of abortion. Well, there may be some truth in what he says. Maybe his argument about abortion is completely true, and I'm blind to it. I do recognize that there is risk that stem cell research could perpetuate abortion. If it turns out to open abortion floodgates I will be guilty of a grave error, and so will the majority of our society. However, Rush Limbaugh fails to elaborate on the full complexity of the situation. He sets aside the possible potential of stem cells.

The Limbaugh Comments Helping the Parkinson's Disease Cause Rush Limbaugh continued to sound off today on his "either acting or off the meds" speculation. It probably is not hurting anyone too much. Today on his show, Limbaugh explained all that he had learned more about Parkinson's disease from all of the email that he had received. He took some time to pass a little of it on.

A caller with Parkinson's disease, Mark from Ohio, called in to discuss his experience with Parkinson's. Mark gave a little of the history of his Parkinson's disease, and talked about his recent DBS surgery. He started to take Rush Limbaugh through the discussion of how Parkinson's disease affects people in different ways. Limbaugh immediately chimed in. "I'm learning a lot about this disease in the last two days," said Limbaugh.

At another point in his broadcast, he referred to the common Parkinson's side effect dyskinesia saying, "Too much medicine can lead to those kinds of movements."

He acknowledged to his millions of listeners a bit of information that we all have known for a long time. Parkinson's disease is complex, and does not treat everyone the same way. "From what I'm hearing, its impossible to come to a consensus on it," said Limbaugh.

Well, he's right. Let's continue to explore all of the options so that we can come to a consensus on treatments and cures for Parkinson's disease and so many other conditions. Perhaps fetal stem cells will be a flop. Perhaps retinal cell implants, GDNF or CERE-120 will usher in the miracle that will relieve millions from Parkinson's disease. The source is not important; but, the diligent pursuit of as many avenues as possible is vital.

One final thought. I was surprised to hear Rush Limbaugh use the word consensus. Consensus is not his forte, in my opinion. I think that confrontation is; and, I suspect that confrontation grabs more radio market share. Like I said, I think that Rush Limbaugh tends to oversimplify politics and social issues in many cases. The complexity of Parkinson's disease stumped him.