Like 'West Wing' president, workers hide illness

David Lander, who played Squiggy on TV's "Laverne and Shirley," hid his multiple sclerosis for 15 years

By From Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical Unit

ATLANTA, Georgia -- It's a case of art imitating life. In NBC's "The West Wing," fictional President Josiah Bartlet hid the fact that he had multiple sclerosis for years until publicly revealing it in the season finale.

And in a recent Harris Poll, four out of 10 people with MS, a chronic disease of the central nervous system, said they had tried to keep their diagnosis a secret.

One who did that is David Lander, who played Squiggy on TV's "Laverne and Shirley" and is now a scout for the Anaheim Angels.

"I hid it for 15 years, primarily because I didn't think show business would embrace the fact that I have a chronic disease known as multiple sclerosis," he said.

Sick workers can be fired

The "West Wing" story line and the survey raise some important questions, including whether employers can legally fire people just because they're sick.

In many cases, the answer is yes, said Wendy Mariner, a health law professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.

The Americans with Disabilities Act would probably protect an MS patient who is disabled -- one who has trouble walking, for example.

But MS patients like Lander aren't actually disabled, so the law probably wouldn't apply, and an employer could fire them, explained Mariner.

"Employers tend to win over 90 percent of the cases that actually go to court in the federal court," Mariner said.

Actor hopeful for change

But it often doesn't come to that. Even when people are protected by the law, employers sometimes fire them or decide not to hire them under one pretext or another, Mariner said.

"There's a great difference between what the law protects in theory and what happens in the real world," Mariner said.

Lander said he's grateful for the "West Wing" story line. He hopes it teaches employers that just because someone has a disease such as multiple sclerosis doesn't mean he can't do a full day's work. And then maybe some day, people like him won't have to lie.