R.E.S.C.I.N.D.

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RESCIND Meets Big Al

I got to the booksigning event late. By the time I arrived at the book store, they were already finishing up the meeting and doing the booksigning.

I did speak with Al's friend Norman Ornstein, who is a commentator on MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and also guests on Al's new show "Lateline". I told him that the CFS might be a good joke for selling books, but that we were suffering from a real illness that has killed people and crippled others. Ornstein was a little surprised in the beginning, but he did come around a bit.

When I confronted Al about the CFS references in his book, he replied "I said that CFS was a real, physical disease". But then I came back with "a reasonable person would surely think that you were making fun of the diagnosis if they saw your appearances on Letterman, and the Today show". Then he shrugged and gave me a look like "Hey, I'm a comedian, what do you want from me?" Al was kind of caught off guard, but I wasn't rude to him. He did realize that we were not happy about the insult.

I asked him if his good friends Hilary and Bill knew that he was making fun of a diagnosis that tens of thousands of sick gulf war veterans were suffering from. He said, "I was not aware of that." Then I said "Well, I have more than a few friends that couldn't be here tonight to voice their opinions because ... they are dead!" Then his handlers said "Let's keep the line moving."

I didn't yell, or raise my voice, but i did make him feel uncomfortable for a little bit. He did say that he was getting lots of mail and even e-mail and he would be more careful with his comments in the future. We will see what happens.

RESCIND responds to Al Franken

Below is our response to Al Franken at the Politics and Prose bookstore after his appearance on Letterman and the Today show, and before his letter of Monday the 25th. A caution for the squeamish: it is a bit sarcastic, but it is from the heart, and what can i say -- i am a sarcastic kind of guy. He did seem to get the message from many e-mails and letters. so to all of you who did get off your butts and acted, we thank you. And to those of you who didn't respond, please consider responding to future attacks on us, which are usually based upon the asinine name we are currently saddled with.

January 21, 1999

Mr. Al Franken
Lateline Creator
Author, Comedian
Raconteur

Re: Hits and Misses: Your new book "Why not Me?" and the slam against people with ME/CFS

Dear Al,

Congratulations on Lateline. I think it is some of your best work yet. It proves that Politics really is show business for homely people. Lots of Politicians and media hacks love to be on camera for any reason and skewering themselves and each other for our amusement is a good idea for a TV show and you will always have a rich treasure trove of material. It looks like you might have a hit on your hands.

But you missed big with your newest book. I have to take issue with a central tenet of your new book, "Why not Me?" On the book jacket you mention that if you got elected you would "come down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" on the second day of your term. This would supposedly help cover up your bungling, depression, mood swings and manic-depressive behavior. Supposedly, you go on to say that this is a physical illness that is completely curable.

For a number of unfortunate reasons, The medical establishment has collected a garbage can full of chronic unexplained symptoms and lumped them under the most unfortunate term of "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." Since 25% of all office visits include the symptom of "chronic fatigue", many doctors, media professionals and members of the public at large confuse a very serious, debilitating illness, properly called Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME) in most of the civilized world with the confounding common symptom of "chronic fatigue."

Unfortunately, I joined this group 11 years ago after eating some poisoned oysters at a local restaurant, and I have been bedridden in excruciating pain for the past 11 years with a severe case of ME/CFS. I need four or five different opiod pain killers each day to kill the pain enough to just stay alive.

Doctors who have treated both AIDS patients and ME/CFS patients have said things like, "Except for the last two months of life, most of my ME/CFS patients are more ill, and more disabled than my AIDS patients." The man who edited "And the Band Played On" by AIDS Activist Randy Shilts, AND "Osler's Web" Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic by ME/CFS activist Hillary Johnson, has said, "I never thought I would say this after living through the heart of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, but you folks have been treated worse than people with AIDS."

In addition, there have been numerous studies that show almost one quarter of all the Veterans who returned from the Gulf War have come down with disabling conditions that closely resemble ME/CFS. One of the top researchers at the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. William Reeves, head of the viral exanthems division of the CDC's Center for Infectious Disease has declared, "After careful study of thousands of returning Veterans we were astonished to conclude that they have a condition that is virtually identical to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." Dr. Reeves has just hired a lawyer, and declared himself a "whistleblower" and revealed that top officials of the CDC have lied to the Congress and the general public about funding irregularities and about not informing the general public about the prevalence and severity of these conditions.

The former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, an appointee of your friend President Bill Clinton has said, "We must treat these Gulf Veterans illnesses as serious as a shotgun blast to the chest or head. They are just as serious, just as devastating."

Does this sound like something to joke about, Al?

Most of us sick folks have a sort of gallows humor that has kept us alive through some brutally tough times. Many of us were hard charging workaholics, who kept trying to work our way out of a flu-like illness. At some point we encountered a viral, chemical, or physical insult that overwhelmed our defenses and left us completely disabled, physically damaged, and cognitively impaired. Great targets for the cruel and devious. We come in all ages, races, ethnic backgrounds and both genders, with cases that range from mildly debilitating to life threatening. Former Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Philip Lee, has declared that "although we are not sure what causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, it is not a figment of anyone's imagination. It is disabling to all and devastating to many."

But because of the benign sounding name of "chronic Fatigue Syndrome' we have become targets of late night comedians, right wing newspaper editorial writers and sadistic insurance company representatives. We are saddened to see that you are adding yourself to this ignorant group.

I personally know of about 100 deaths in our little Internet group of approximately 4,000. Several people with ME/CFS have sent thousands of pages of research data to Dr. Kevorkian to assist them in ending their terrible pain. He refused to help for years, until he discovered how serious these conditions really can be.

You also mention in you book that you want an All Jewish cabinet, because you want the President to be "comfortable", rather than having a cabinet that "looks like America" a la your friend Bill Clinton. Do you make Holocaust jokes, Al? Like this one where the Rabbi comes to the front of a group of Jews imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. The Rabbi says "My fellow Jews, I have good news and bad news: The Good News is, We are all going to England...but the bad news is We are all going as lampshades!" Is that funny to you, Al? I bet there are at least 6 million Jews who perished at the callous hands of the Nazis who don't think that joke was too funny. Well, Al, there are at LEAST 6 million Americans who suffer from FMS, and ME/CFS. Many of them are brave veterans from the Gulf War who defended your right to drive around with cheap oil and gas, and helped to make the economy roar so that people could afford to blow 35 bucks on such pieces of crap as your newest book.

You claim to be friends with the first family. Did you know Hillary Clinton, just two days before the election last year, sat down with Jim Lehrer of PBS and he asked her did she have one overriding desire or concern, if her husband was elected to a second term. She replied, "Something happened to our brave soldiers over in the Gulf, and we need to find out what it was."

Now four different groups in both the private sector and in the military and the Center's for Disease Control have published papers in JAMA, the most conservative and influential medical journal in the country that say, "Gulf War Illnesses most closely resemble Chronic Fatigue Syndrome."

Do you think these soldiers would risk their careers, lose health coverage for themselves and their families, stop any chance for advancement, spend years fighting the slothlike bureaucracy of the Veterans Administration when they were sick, nauseous, dizzy, and in tremendous nerve and muscle pain just to come down with this "whiny white women's disease of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?"

Does that make any sense, Al?

These soldiers were the most physically fit, psychologically screened best-educated, most thoroughly trained combatants in the entire History of Warfare. Don't you think they could have come down with something more believable, more exotic, more macho, than a psychosomatic malingerers excuse for an illness?

Johnny Carson once said, "Comedy is just tragedy, plus time." In this case he seems right on the money. What has happened to us is a tragedy. But it is way past time that we stop being the doormat for lazy comedians and greedy insurance companies and arrogant and ignorant Doctors. We are not going to take it anymore. If you had any integrity, you would take any profits you make from this book and donate them to Gulf War Veterans Health Care. So that we can someday find the causes, treatments and cures for such vicious diseases. The Great German Philosopher Schopenhauer once said, "All Truth goes through Three stages: First, It is ridiculed, Second, It is violently opposed, Finally, it is accepted as being self-evident."

We have a web site at http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4277 that provides hundreds of links to thousands of pages of information to back up our claims. You could turn your poor attempt at humor into a positive force for change, If you have the class and integrity to admit that you were wrong. The choice is all yours, Al; the choice is up to YOU!

Permission is granted to distribute this letter to any activist website that is dedicated to finding the truth about MCSS, ME/CFS, FMS, and GWS

PLEASE do not take isolated parts of sentences out of context and use them to rile up the masses...thank you.

Tom Hennessy, Jr.
President
RESCIND, Inc.

Al Franken responds

Looking at this letter from Big Al, it seems like he actually did have a change of heart. I have never seen him apologize to anybody before. He did seem more sensitive about hurting our feelings than I might have expected when i confronted him. Very interesting.

We only approached him last Thursday and he admitted to getting a lot of e-mails already. So keep up the good work, Michelle.

Thanks to Michelle Townsend for sharing this reply from Al Franken.

From: AFranken@aol.com
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 6:02 PM
Subject: Apology

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding my regrettably confusing and misleading statements about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on the Today Show and the Late Show with David Letterman.

In my book, Why Not Me?, President Franken becomes depressed immediately after taking office. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is used by the Franken White House as a cover for his/my depression. In no way did I mean to suggest that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is anything other than a physical disease. Indeed, on page 238 of the book my press secretary says, "I think if you ask anyone who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, they'll tell you it's a very real disease that's physical in nature."

However, it is easy to see how someone could have gotten the exact opposite impression from my appearances on Letterman and particularly the Today Show, where I said, "Well, the second day I get chronic fatigue syndrome, which is really just depression." What I should have said is something like: "On the second day, the White House says that I have chronic fatigue syndrome, but I'm really suffering from a debilitating bout of depression." I'm a writer, and I'm supposed to be precise with words, so there's no excuse for this mistake.

I understand that on certain CFS websites I've been slightly misquoted as saying on the Today Show: "chronic fatigue syndrome, which we all know is depression." I didn't say that, and it wasn't my intention to communicate that idea, but I can certainly see how someone could draw that conclusion from what I said.

I don't know precisely what I said on Letterman because I don't have a tape or transcript. I think it probably wasn't as egregious as the Today Show, because I haven't heard as much complaint about the Letterman appearance.

I have received a tremendous number of e-mail's and faxes from hurt and angry people who believed I was saying that chronic fatigue syndrome is depression. Again, I completely understand how someone could have drawn this inference from what I said, and I'm very sorry and embarrassed. Since my mistake, I have learned more about CFS and understand better than ever that CFS is a very real and often incapacitating disease. The last thing the sufferers of this disease need is the dissemination of misinformation.

I have made sure that in subsequent recountings of the book's storyline I have made it clear that CFS and depression are not the same thing. Again, I am very sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness.

Sincerely,

Al Franken

Thanks to all who wrote to educate him and to keep the heat on. Well done. We need to enlighten the public whenever and wherever possible.

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