Video: Watch The Michael J. Fox TV Ad

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh has started another controversy after he says that actor Michael J. Fox was playing up his Parkinson's symptoms for political ads.

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners on Monday. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

Limbaugh qualified his remarks later on Monday, saying that "I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act."

But Limbaugh added he still thought it was wrong of Fox to use his illness to promote politics.

"It is downright mean to mislead people who suffer from incurable diseases at the moment or horrible diseases, that there is a cure around the corner if only, if only Republicans could be defeated," Limbaugh said.

Link: Read Limbaugh's Comments In Detail

The campaign ad opens with a familiar boyish face, now atop a body that sways uncontrollably. Fox, wearing a shirt and suit jacket, talks directly to the camera.

"They say all politics is local, but it's not always the case,'' Fox says in the 30-second commercial backing Senate candidate Claire McCaskill in Missouri, a Democrat. ``What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans - Americans like me.''

Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's and supports research on embryonic stem cell for a potential cure, also has lent his celebrity to Democrats Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, running for the Senate in Maryland, and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, who is seeking re-election. Both politicians also back stem cell research.

Dr. John Boockvar, a neurosurgeon and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical Center at New York's Presbyterian Hospital, called Limbaugh's claim ``ludicrous.'' Boockvar said those with Parkinson's have ``on'' and ``off'' spells.

"If there is one single disease that has the highest potential for benefit from stem cell research,'' Boockvar said Tuesday, ``it's Parkinson's.''