Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 2)

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Introduction

CHRIS BENOIT’S SON’S MEDICAL CONDITION SETS OFF A MEDIA FRENZY

After World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy, snapped their son Daniel’s neck, and suspended himself by the throat from a home gym exercise machine, one aspect of the media frenzy concerned the medical condition of Daniel. (The bodies were found on June 25, 2007, after a weekend-long chain of events.) All this is explained fully in my book CHRIS & NANCY. During my book research, I blogged contemporaneously about this subject at these links:

“Crossing the T’s on Fragile X,” September 28, 2007, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/archive-92807-crossing-the-ts-on-fragile-x/

“Back to Daniel Benoit and Fragile X Syndrome,” May 8, 2008, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/archive-5808-back-to-daniel-benoit-and-fragile-x-syndrome/

In a nutshell:

(1) The loose-lipped district attorney of Fayette County, Georgia, scene of the crime, told the media that Daniel’s arm showed needle marks from injections of Human Growth Hormone by his parents, who were said to be concerned about the boy’s size. He was “small, even dwarfed,” DA Scott Ballard said.

(2) Hearing these reports, a woman in Vancouver, British Columbia, a Fragile X parent and activist, told a radio station there that her late husband had once contacted Chris Benoit (a native Canadian celebrity) about the possibility of Benoit’s becoming a Fragile X spokesman in Canada.

(3) Nancy Benoit’s family fired back in outrage, saying Daniel was a medically normal child. The chastened district attorney recanted.

And in the middle of all this, Linda McMahon, CEO of WWE, helped directed a 48-hour corporate media campaign, which exploited the vague and undocumented Fragile X story to divert public attention specifically from the large stash of steroids, growth hormone, and other drugs found in the Benoit home, and generally from the hideous culture of death in her industry.

NEXT: Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”

Irv Muchnick