Unless you've been living in a cave with no radio, TV or internet you have heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge. As little as about a week ago I had never heard of it. Then I saw a story about Mark Zuckerberg getting a bucket of ice water dumped on his head for ALS research. There was a link to a story about Bill Gates doing the same thing. Next day I see Elon Musk getting the ice water dumped on him. So I'm thinking: Billionaires sure are strange. Why didn't they just write a check? Since then its exploded and gone viral. Every celeb from Lady Gaga to Les Miles to Derek Jeter to Michael Jordan. Drew Brees. Even Nick Saban. Last night I heard Saban call out "His great friend Paul Finebaum," Mark Ingram, Will Muschamp and some senator from West Virginia. In a week its raised over $22 Million for ALS. ALS is a horrible disease. Its also known as Lou Gerhig's disease. Research to find cures for any fatal disease is a worthy cause. But I wish they had chosen cancer as the disease to raise all that money for. Why? I think there are a lot more victims of cancer than ALS. Nobody whom I have personally known has even gotten ALS. But the list of people who have died of cancer is a lot longer than I care to think about. When all the hoopla and media attention are over for the Ice Bucket Challenge I hope somebody comes up with a catchy way to raise money for cancer that gets the same media attention.
Whoopee. Slick Nick got 4 drops of water. Come on Les. Step up to the plate and get drenched with a full bucket of ice water.
You been in a cave? http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...-143415182.html;_ylt=AwrTHRLCVvZTfyMAsQHBGOd_
I can tell you that cancer has taken 3 of the most important people in my life and using that as my frame of reference, in my opinion you are wrong. I hope and pray that no one you ever know gets it because it is truly horrible, many times worse than cancer imo. The thing about cancer is I think they have a cure, I think they have had one for a while. There is just too much damn money being made treating it with expensive treatments that rarely work to go messing things up with something silly like a cure. ALS is freaking terrible and I hope that this does get things moving along and that they can isolate the gene and figure out how to block or reverse the effects. My wife, my son and myself have all done the challenge and I'm sure we will do it again before it is all over with.
No, because I've seen the green smoothie ad a million times the past four days. Way to represent Les!!
They probably do write checks but they bring in more donors by participating in things like this. Clearly there are more deaths from cancer than ALS...but in the US alone, fund-raising for cancer research is in the billions. Advertising costs just for breast cancer exceeds $600M/yr. The current challenge is derived from the "cold water challenge" that has been in use for a few years and has benefitted certain cancer research funds. There have been some limited findings linking ALS with brain trauma, similar to dementia and Alzheimer's. It took yet another football player suffering from ALS to help kick off the current ice bucket challenge. Sadly, that player's friend and co-founder of the challenge died last weekend in a random diving accident. He was only 27.
It started out with a guy whose cousin's husband has ALS. Steve Gleason was challenged by Scott Fujita and it really took off from there. Has some guy whose cousin's husband had cancer, then it would have probably been for cancer.
Not to mention there is no treatment or cure for ALS. Once diagnosed, the average lifespan is just 3-5 years and is always fatal.
I get it. Its just that like shane, I have lost 3 people very important to me to cancer including my mother. One day they will find cures for all those diseases but it won't happen nearly soon enough.
I'm sorry to hear it...cancer sucks. It took my dad 5 years ago. We were blessed that his suffering was not very long but yea, 2 of the hardest months of my life. I agree....I pray for cures for all of them, mostly pediatric types of cancer.
