It's really unfortunate that, if true, a potentially life threatening illness can be thrown into the same credulity bin as 'bomb threat' (pick one from a hat, they get them all the time, so technically 'true'), busted Navigator windows (where is that tape?), reporters who...nobody wants to say *that* word (that turned out well, didn't it?) and all the other lies these guys have casually doffed at the taxpayer' (And that's just a small random sample of the weapons-grade crap these guys fling without care or conscience).
We all know the archetypal tale of this kind of self-aggrandizing duplicity: Aw-ooooo! But who can blame anyone who rolls their eyes and says, "Good God, another diversionary tactic." Any human empathy one might be capable of exercising in the instance of another human suffering has, in this case, been so diluted by high-grade bullshit that tears run brown.
If he's ill, hope he gets better. If not, this is a new low. Let's humanely hope for the former, but nobody should be dragged down for assuming the latter.