Why the #IceBucketChallenge for ALS is totally worthless

The ALS Association has very high reviews from CharityNavigator which looks for ripoff charities…of which ALS Association definitely is NOT. Wonderful they are getting donations.

HOWEVER……
The REASON for the ice bucket challenge is to make up for the dollars lost in funding when the Sequester went into effect. $1.6Billion was given in grants to disease research of this type….I SAID WAS as it was cut from the NIH budget by the Sequester. Directors of centers focusing on this research say the Sequester has set us back a generation in research…one research center had over $60Million cut…THAT WAS ONE CENTER. Tens of thousands of researchers are now…not working. ALS reports all of this media coverage has resulted in only $15Million being collected…nearly 10 times their normal amount…which means their donations are headed down steeply once America’s entertainment eye goes elsewhere. This is not seen as a longterm thing at all….this funding or this PR move. $15Millioncollected from rampant internet advertising and promotion…as opposed to $1.6Billion in prior normal funding.

SO…..
As opposed to funding these disease projects…the alternative is to pour ice on your head….and as a result raise less than 1/1000th of the amount they had previous….which was a bare bones budget to begin with. And to boot many of the supporters of this had family members die from ALS and a myriad of diseases. Now they do not have the one bit of solace that the scientific effort to stop this horrible disease might stop others from their horror…that solace is now not funded and derailed a generation of research. And after the loss of family members and loved ones….their alternative is to pour ice on their head and collect LESS than pennies on the dollar for their effort and loss. Your family member died from this disease….now to fund research to fund it for a penny….pour a bucket of ice water on your head instead of it just getting funded.

omg……………. America is truly THE HUNGER GAMES.
And “GUESS WHO” wanted much much deeper Sequester cuts???????? This cut made us closer to a balanced budget…great huh?

How about voting for lawmakers who didn’t want to cut funding in the first place so you don’t have to pour ice on your head? Nah….

Story is located here

Bill Gates, Lebron James, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker don’t ostensibly have much in common. But they’ve all recently poured buckets of ice on their head in support of ALS research. Yes, members of this motley crew — alongside hundreds of your Facebook friends — have posted viral videos of themselves shivering gleefully in order to raise money for a good cause. And while their videos have been unquestionably successful in terms of raising awareness (1.2 million videos uploaded) and funds ($13.3 million contributed) on behalf of an intractable disease, they have overlooked the most important message of all: vote.

According to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, his agency has lost 25 percent of its purchasing power over the last decade due to draconian federal budget cuts coupled with inflation. Why does this affect ALS? Because according to the ALS Association, the NIH is the single largest source of ALS research funding in the world. But in 2014, the NIH has seen their funding slashed 5.1 percent, and their total budget is now $30.15 billion, down from $31.2 billion in 2010.

Let’s put this another way: A month-long viral social media campaign consisting of billionaires, media moguls, and celebrities alike has raised $13 million, while a seemingly trivial percent cut in NIH funding means billions of dollars.

“We are throwing away probably half of the innovative, talented research proposals that the nation’s finest biomedical community has produced,” Dr. Collins told the USA Today. “Particularly for young scientists, they are now beginning to wonder if they are in the wrong field. We have a serious risk of losing the most important resource that we have, which is this brain trust, the talent and the creative energies of this generation of scientists.”

So what should celebrities, billionaires, and your Facebook friends really start banding together around? Voting out politicians who cut funding for medical research…

You can start by registering to vote at OurTime.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2014 at 10:36 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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