By the thinkBIG Team
Michael J Fox turned his attention from acting to a bigger, more noble cause: that of funding research into the as yet incurable neurological disorder Parkinson's disease. He has taken on that role with the optimism and energy we came to love seeing him on screen.
Alex P Keaton, 1980s poster boy for conservative American values, was the unlikely Family Ties character that catapulted Michael J Fox to stardom. Roles as Marty McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy and as Mike Flaherty, deputy mayor in Spin City, cemented Fox's place in film and television history.
For those of us who grew up in the 1980s and '90s, Fox is part of some of our fondest memories. As Keaton, he summed up the mood of an era falling somewhere between Gordon Gecko and Ferris Bueller. Politics and family played a large role in the Family Ties storylines, the program dealing with issues that conservatives and liberals would freely if sometimes heatedly debate: the politics of greed, the policies of Ronald Reagan, capitalism versus socialism…
But this isn't the story of liberal versus conservative politics, even though those delineations have played a major role in the Foundation and legacy we are about to discuss. This story is about Michael J Fox, one of the best loved actors of his generation and his fight to fund a cure for Parkinson's disease, the same disease he was diagnosed with in 1991 at age 30.
Nearly five million people worldwide live with the degenerative neurological disorder, Parkinson's Disease. Currently, no treatment has yet proven to stop or slow the disorder's progression.
The morality-based arguments pertaining to certain forms of research including embryonic stem cell tests seem to have slowed research, yet as William Saletan wrote in online magazine Slate: "Proponents of embryo research are insisting that because we're in a life-and-death struggle — in this case, a scientific struggle — anyone who impedes that struggle by renouncing effective tools is irrational and irresponsible," Mr. Saletan wrote. "The war on disease is like the war on terror. Either you're with science or you're against it."
Saletan, although biased in his views, does make the valid point that to pursue or not to pursue is a moral choice and moral choices inevitably end up in political debate.
Political procrastination, red tape and box ticking unfortunately slows research and funding down. And funding is vital if scientists are to continue their war against those diseases that ravage the body and inevitably, the human spirit.
Michael J Fox, who through the MJF Foundation, has raised over $150 million in his search for a cure for Parkinson's Disease. In this fight he has proven that the energy and spirit he showed on television and in film, is just as vital off screen.
If there is an optimistic take on Parkinson's Disease, it is Fox's: "It opened up other possibilities to me. I went in directions I could not have gone."
In 2009 Fox released his follow up to the bestselling memoir, Lucky Man titled Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.
The book explores the optimist theme through his travels to Bhutan to learn about Gross National Happiness, to the golf range to discuss positive thinking with actor Bill Murray and to England where a scientist confirmed his optimism as part of his genetic make up.
"She has this test she developed where she identified genetic markers of people who have increased serotonin output and are born optimistic, and she did it on me," said Fox in a radio interview.
"There is a second part where you are given a series of images, one horrific and one benign or sentimental, and depending on how you respond, it is further proof. I was attracted to positive images."
The best way for Fox to fight his personal battle, was to fight it on public territory. Optimism is yet to beat his disease, but the MJF Foundation is doing all it can to raise awareness and lift the spirits and hopes of those who suffer.
At first, Fox tried to hide his disorder. A twitchy pinky finger presented as his first symptom in 1990. He was diagnosed a year later and kept the disorder a secret for another seven. However, while working on Spin City the symptoms exacerbated and neither working more nor drinking more could hide the fact that Fox had a problem. Logistics, he says, got in the way of creativity.
There was nowhere to hide and no more tales to spin. He quit drinking and went public with the news.
Trying to come to terms with his disorder, he had an epiphany.
Fox noticed while swimming, an injury to a turtle's flipper. "I don't know what kind of symbol that turtle was, but I knew there were places to go," Fox told an audience at a City Arts and Lectures event at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.
"I was struck by its 'survivorhood'."
That's when Fox quit his day job and found his "life work." He also struck up a friendship with cancer survivor and advocate for cancer research, Lance Armstrong. Inspired, Fox threw himself into the Michael J Fox Foundation which he Chairs, but does not run.
He refers to himself as a high school dropout who has surrounded himself with brilliant business and scientific minds. He told writer Rosemary Ellis, "When I started it, I thought, I'm not smart enough to do this. I had no experience in management, no experience in administration, no experience in non-profit; but then this phrase came into my head: I only had to be smart enough to find people who are smarter than me; I only have to be smart enough to recognise who knows more than me."
There is another factor to the Foundation's success, which the New York Times coins as 'the most credible voice of Parkinson's research in the world', and that is Fox's enthusiasm for the project and, of course, that eternal optimism. However he didn't want to be a poster boy for the cause, he wanted to become involved and did so in Congressional hearings where he testified to the fact that Parkinson's was underfunded.
Optimism comes third to politics and money and his support for more funding and for stem cell research became just as big a fight than that of his war against Parkinson's. Legislators held firm, particularly during the Bush Administration, moralists protested and even conservative US talk show host Rush Limbaugh commented that Fox was either exaggerating his symptoms or deliberately went off his medication when he appeared in political ads. Limbaugh even went to the lengths of mocking Fox's movements.
"I saw the footage of him doing that and I was mad, not for me but it stigmatised this whole community of people," Fox said.
Initially Fox was looking for a cure, but as he matured with the problem he came to realise that research would take him on a long road. Support has come from the New York financial community, helped in part by his role on Family Ties.
"When I started the foundation, all these Wall St guys grew up idolising Alex. So in a way their help with the Foundation was a way of giving back," Fox told The Costco Connection.
The MJF does not focus on patient advocacy but is dedicated to the eradication of Parkinson's through direct funding to research.
"Studies that we are funding are not … limited to drug therapies or potential cures but (are) also into the effects of exercise and diet, psychology and attitude."
Those suffering the disease may not always share Fox's 'positive' genetic make up.
"I always qualify my mental attitude …with the acknowledgement that depression is a very real part of this for many people and it's just something from which I've been spared. You can have all kinds of positive feelings about life, but it's cancelled by this 'house' sitting on you every day," Fox tells Costco Connection.
Living with the disorder as well as using his public image to promote the Foundation is a delicate balancing act. He has to co-ordinate his medication to gain full control of his body in conjunction with his appearances, but it has become a necessary part of life and something he has accepted.
Fox also sees the positives to his life brought about by Parkinson's.
"There are things that I can't do to the extent that I used to do, or in some cases, at all. But there are more things that I do that I didn't do before. We sometimes see subtraction when we're ill. They're not just subtractions. I'm not me minus anything; I'm me plus the experience. Whether it's good or bad is a subjective thing, but this has assuredly changed my path. And changed the way I look at things.
And changed the way I do things. I started this Foundation; I wrote two books now…I've seen the reaction people have to my message, which is a positive message and a message we can change things not out of panic but out of hope and a sense of purpose."
In every role he has played, Fox has exuded energy. Whether on set, or in life that energy is infectious and has influenced and inspired his audiences. He may not be a doctor, but this favourite son of Hollywood has cured people in ways that some real doctors can only dream of.
It is best then to leave you with why he named his second book. Always Looking Up. He told Rosemary Ellis, "People say 'How do you achieve this?' And you hear, 'Just keep your head down'. But I find the opposite is true: Keep your head up."
