After pleading for President Donald Trump’s assistance, Michael J. Fox is combating his incurable disease on his own.
“Our foundation directs more money towards Parkinson’s research than the federal government,” Fox, 64, said of his Michael J. Fox Foundation in an interview with Vanity Fair on Tuesday.
“It’s frustrating to know we’re putting everything we can into it, and it would be nice to have the government behind us, but it seems that they’re involved in other things that have less impact on people’s lives,” the Emmy-winning actor continued.
Fox, best known for his leading role in Back to the Future—whose villain Biff is notoriously based on Trump—has become the leading figure in the fight to cure Parkinson’s disease.
His namesake foundation has funded more than $2.5 billion in Parkinson’s research since its founding in 2000.
Parkinson’s is a so-far incurable disorder that progressively degenerates a person’s nervous system, leading to tremors, stiffness, and balance issues, among other symptoms.
One year ago, Fox penned an op-ed in USA Today, imploring the new presidential administration to “do everything in their power to end Parkinson’s once and for all.”
Fox, who had just received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden, wrote that the country was poised to reach new breakthroughs in finding a cure, “if the incoming administration seizes this opportunity.”
“Elected officials pledge to make our lives better. This is a chance to make good on that promise,” Fox wrote.
Now, one year later, Fox says he’s seen little urgency from the administration.
“He’s busy with Greenland. More pressing concerns, I guess,” the actor told Vanity Fair.
Fox, however, remains optimistic. He plans to meet with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. soon to discuss a potential partnership.
“I’m going to Washington next month and hopefully talk to Kennedy and find out what the government’s game plan is on addressing brain research in general and taking a more serious approach to some of these things that are soluble,” he told Vanity Fair. “It’s just a weird disease. We always say genetics loads a gun and environment pulls the trigger. We’re trying to figure out what’s biological and what’s chemical.”
Now, Fox is ending his five-year acting retirement to raise greater awareness of the disease through a guest role on Season 3 of Apple TV’s Shrinking.
In the show, created by Fox’s former Spin City showrunner Bill Lawrence, the actor appears opposite Harrison Ford, whose character, Dr. Paul Rhodes, has Parkinson’s.
“I had no idea Parkinson’s would take as much from it as it would,” Fox said in an interview for the show. “But I had no idea it would give as much to me as it has.”
Fox will appear in multiple episodes of the Apple TV show’s new season, which premiered on Wednesday.
