Lets stop pretending like pouring ice on ourselves means anything until we can acknowledge the research that some of the causes and cures for ALS already exist -- none of them involving pharmaceutical intervention. The ALS Associations Ice Bucket Challenge, as of the writing of this article, has grossed over 41 million dollars in donations, which has driven hundreds of thousands to join the fight against ALS, according to a recent Huffington Post blog written by Jose Costa. The perpetual meme of fighting idiopathic diseases -- meaning, diseases with no known cause -- has become the most successful cause-marketing strategy of our time, with billions of dollars raised without appreciable yield for the ultimate outcome: saving lives. Just look at Susan G. Komen, which raises billions for races and research into pharmaceutical and/or radiation-based treatments, but has yet to do anything to stem the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of healthy women (1.3 million women falsely diagnosed of breast cancer in the past 30 years), much less improve the survival times of those who actually do have a life threatening form of breast cancer. For organizations that explicitly confess their ignorance about causes or cures of diseases they presumably intend to overcome, co-opting the good intentions of the mainstream with viral social media campaigns has become the flavor of the day.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 11:04:22 +0000
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