Johan Derksen rarely retracts a statement, but swallowed in the broadcast of Monday Veronica Inside a joke he made last week. The analyst expressed regret for a comment that downplayed the potential seriousness of metabolic diseases. Derksen was repented by a viewer of the program: 51-year-old Danny Driënhuizen, whose ten-year-old son Axel has a serious metabolic disease. In the Algemeen Dagblad Danny tells his story.

Last Friday, Derksen made a joke about the metabolic disease of the new PSV midfielder Mario Götze, without being aware of the possible seriousness of those diseases. When Götze’s wife, Ann-Kathrin Brömmel, was mentioned, the analyst joked that he would have “also a metabolic disease” for her. After seeing a letter from Danny, Derksen stated in the next broadcast that he had made a “very stupid, uncivilized comment.” “He wrote something with which I totally agree: if I had said ‘I have cancer for that too’, then a riot would have started. But because of my ignorance about the seriousness of a metabolic disease, I just have something very stupid said. “

In his letter Danny wrote that his son Axel, almost eleven years old, has a progressive and life-threatening metabolic disease. He cannot walk, talk and eat. The boy needs palliative care all his life; Axel is now older than the doctors thought shortly after his birth. “It is thought that more children die from metabolic diseases than from cancer. There is no cure and only a few are treatable. can be read on the website of the Algemeen Dagblad.

In an interview with the newspaper, Danny says that life can be tough for the family. “Because you are not trained for this. But with our family we make the best of it,” said Axel’s father. The way in which Derksen rectified his comment can count on the appreciation of Danny. “Very courteous how Johan and Wilfred have handled this. Anyone can make a slip, but if you solve it in this way, then I can only have respect for it. I am not angry at all anymore.”

In Friday’s broadcast, the table gentlemen will reflect on the Day of Bundling of Strength against Metabolic Diseases, which takes place on Saturday. Derksen has also learned more about the disease himself. “I now also know that ten thousand families are affected. Look, such a comment arises during the broadcast. You do not realize that, because, like most Dutch people, you do not know what that disease entails,” he explains. “If I think someone is an asshole, it makes no difference to me. But I would like to correct this mistake. I have no problem with that. I am glad that Danny appreciates our response. On Friday we will pay attention to the broadcast again. Day of the Metabolic Disease. That seems very useful. “