Let’s just say that this new video, featuring former Massachusetts First Lady Ann Romney talking about MS, made me feel alternately excited and angry. Romney was diagnosed with MS in 1998, and she has spoken publicly about it periodically over the years. In addition, her collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston created the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases in 2014. The center is set to do important work across several conditions, not just multiple sclerosis. It’s a collaboration of a group of multidisciplinary biomedical research laboratories, tasked with finding the causes, treatments, and cures for chronic, unsolved neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and MS. Good stuff! RELATED: Ann Romney: The Unexpected Treatment That Changed My MS
Raising MS Awareness and Perpetuating Misconceptions
What wasn’t good in the video ranged from poor word choices to what I interpreted as poor editing. Now, I’m not going to let Mrs. Romney off the hook for some of the things she said. But I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on a few things that I feel were surely production decisions gone far off target. I’ll let slide that she used the word “sympathy,” when I’m pretty sure she meant that people with MS “empathized” with her on the 2012 campaign trail when her husband, Mitt Romney, was running for U.S. president. I’ll give a pass when she says, “Before, I was weak, but now I’m strong.” I will even suppress the urge to vomit when she calls MS her “gift.” For me, multiple sclerosis is no gift. MS is a thief: an insidious, progressive, debilitating thief. And when she says she’s “grateful” for the disease … I wanted to change the channel.
Public Not Helped by Misleading Sound Bites
Where the video goes off the rails for me is when the editors cut and splice to medical evidence (like it’s important to attack hard when MS is in its early phases), with sound bites that make it sound like steroids treat MS — the disease, not just the symptoms. Or when an edit makes it sound like MS used to be a death sentence. We all know that there can be death from MS complications, but that dying as a direct result of MS is a very rare occurrence. The video ends on a hopeful note, with Romney saying that she’s “going to give people hope.” It’s an admirable goal, and I wish her, the doctors, and researchers of the Ann Romney Center all the best. I look forward to breakthroughs from their impressive center. What I do not find helpful, however, came in the same sentence as “I’m grateful…” She speaks of MS in the past tense: “I’m grateful that I had it.” Had? That one I’ll not let slide. Until there is a cure, the only way one can experience MS in the past tense is both obvious and unfortunate. I might suggest, for the sake of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, as well as for Romney’s reputation within the MS community, that she find a better video editor. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
