Former WWE, WCW and ECW star Lance Storm has a new blog on his StormWrestling.com website where he talks about why he’s not supporting the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The full blog is at this link but here’s part of what he wrote:
“The first flaw is that a lot of people taking up this challenge are just doing creative videos of themselves dumping water on their heads as a vanity project to get attention and pat themselves on the back for all the good they are doing, despite not donating a single penny. The excuse or denial here is “Well at least we are creating awareness, look at the national donations, they are way up”. Way to pass the buck. I’m sure you’re individual video was the one that made the difference. For those who did in fact donate or are pacified with the “I’ve created awareness” we then have the second flaw.
What is the ALSA doing with all of this money? The truth is the vast majority of the money you are donating is not going towards research and finding a cure for ALS. The numbers are disputed somewhat. I’ve heard people claim as low as 7% is going towards research and the ALSA claims that number is closer to 27%. Lets for the sake of convenience and benefit of the doubt, use 25%. Three quarters of the money you donate to help find a cure isn’t going where you want it to. Most of it is going towards “Awareness and Education”, which could be translated to be read “Advertising and Promotions” to ensure more money gets donated so they can again put only one quarter of it towards what they are claiming it’s for in their promotion and advertising. It is a deceitful cycle that keeps a lot of people employed earning great livings while delivering very little of the money donated to the cause they are promoting. To this we offer ourselves the excuse, “Well 25% is better than nothing, that is still a lot of money, and someone has to run these charities” To this I offer you the popular concept of cutting out the middle man. Why are we donating to these Charity groups that only deliver a small percentage of our donations to the research groups? Why not donate directly to the people that are actually doing the work, the people trying to discover treatments and cures?
This is the third and final flaw. The reason we don’t donate directly is because then we would discover that the portion of our donation that isn’t going towards salaries and advertising, that 25% that we think is actually doing good, is going into the pockets of Big Pharma. Yes the pharmaceutical companies are getting your money. You are giving your money to some of the biggest, richest, most profitable companies in the world. You are helping cover the cost of their research and development programs to allow them to make higher profits. You are not financing new research, this is research they are already doing. This is how they make their money after all. They create new drugs to treat diseases, and when they find a new treatment they patent it and sell it back to you at a huge profit.
Think about that for a minute. Millions upon millions of dollars are being GIVEN to a company to help find a cure or treatment of a disease and if they find a cure/treatment, the people you GAVE that money to will then patent that cure and sell it back to you at a huge profit. Wait…What…profit? I thought we donated to Charity, a non-profit organization. Oh right that’s another reason why we don’t donate directly to the people doing the research if we did they wouldn’t be able to claim it as a non-profit or a charity, and they are creating these drugs with the sole intention of making profits, hundreds or millions of dollars in profits. Yes your good intentioned donations, or at least the part that isn’t going towards salaries and advertising, that huge 25% of it, is going towards increasing the profit margins of some of the richest most profitable companies in the world. Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
