I love Mike Rowe, and I totally agree with everything he says here. Most of all, I do have concern about how the ALS Foundation will be able to handle the sudden influx of cash, but I trust that theyre professionals and will find a way. Lets face it -- its a good problem to have. Regardless Mikes good points, though, there IS another way to look at it: How about the idea that since ALS only affects about 30,000 people per year in the US, the organization has been severely UNDER-funded for its entire existence until now? How about the idea that all this new influx of support maybe makes up for that? How about the idea that for those only 30,000, this is the first ray of hope theyve ever really had? I respect Mike for his views, but he admitted that if someone he cared about had ALS, hed be out there yelling and challenging as loudly as anyone. Well, I lost a friend and a very promising author to this disease very recently. It still stings to remember watching his condition deteriorate until he was in a wheelchair and unable to breathe on his own. I had barely even heard of ALS until my friend got it. But this Ice Bucket Challenge opened my eyes and those of many millions of people to this horrible disease. That in itself is a huge thing, because its hard to fight something you dont even know exists. I do think people should be making more effort to educate their ice bucket video watchers about ALS, the way my friend Evan Granger did in his awesome vid. But I certainly dont think those who simply raised money wasted their effort. To be honest, I am pretty much over the whole pink ribbon thing for breast cancer awareness, and was kinda relieved to see attention going somewhere else for a change. And dont jump on me, because I had a breast cancer scare myself two years ago, so its personal for me. But Im in marketing as a profession, and its clear that the pink ribbon campaign has done its job: the money that continues to pour into that cause to the Komen Foundation (though Komen has shown clearly that it may not be the best steward of that windfall) and others like it tells us that people have indeed become aware of that disease. And because of that, breast cancer patients have been allowed to have hope for a cure. But ALS patients? No. There is no cure and none in sight. And theyre pretty much told that because theyre in a small group of sufferers, the research moneys just not ever gonna be there. So they dont even get the luxury of hope. Then along comes this admittedly brilliant marketing campaign, and youve seen the outcome. But now the ability of the ALS Foundation to properly steward the money has been brought into question, though theyve shown no actual reason for concern, the way Komen did. Somehow, though, I just cant see any of us looking in the eye of those whove been diagnosed with ALS and feeling bad about the glimmer of hope weve helped put there by participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge. I sure as hell dont feel bad about it. ALS sufferers may be rare, but that doesnt make them any less worthy of having hope. I certainly dont have the exposure or audience or influence of Mike Rowe. But I felt the need to respond to this, because I feel that there are two legitimate sides to this debate, and wanted to make sure the other side got some consideration.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:34:05 +0000
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