Actor Michael J Fox awarded Swedish honorary doctorate

Stockholm - Actor Michael J Fox's efforts to raise funds and awareness about Parkinson's disease earned him an honorary medical doctorate in Sweden on Friday. The award was announced by Karolinska Institutet, the respected Swedish institute that awards the Nobel prize for medicine.

Fox in 2000 set up the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research that has contributed over 175 million dollars to Parkinson's drug development research around the world, including at Karolinska Institutet.

The ceremony was to take place later Friday at the home of the Swedish honorary consul general in New York, the institute said.

"Strongly influenced by Michael's personal philosophy, his foundation operates with rare dynamism and a constant focus on speeding breakthrough treatments to the world's five million Parkinson's patients," said Associate Professor Clara H Gumpert, who represented the institute's Board of Research.

Fox was born 1961 in Canada and was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991. He announced his condition in 1998.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/312604,actor-michael-j-fox-awarded-swedish-honorary-doctorate.html.