#ALSIceBucketChallenge, what about the real victims?

I have been away from the office for a good 10 days.  By away from the office, I mean I didn’t have cell reception (I still have a dumb phone) and our GPS wouldn’t even spot our vacation spot.  I did have some spotty WiFi connection with my iPod at the vacation spot to check things online once in a while. 

One message I received was that I was challenged to the ALS Ice Bucket on the head thing.  My first thought was ‘not me, not now.’  My second though was still a big, fat, ‘no.’  It was an easy decision not to participate.  Why?  Because it’s not going to do anything to cure the disease.

How many walks, rides, 5ks, and community events do we have to raise awareness and research dollars to end a disease?  If you live in a city big enough like Colorado Springs, you can probably find one every weekend.  A ton of time, effort, and resources go into making these events successful and what do we have to show for it?

Back in the 60’s, Nixon fired up the nation to raise $1 billion to end cancer.  The next decade we needed another billion, and every decade after that, it seems that we need more money to do more research.  It’s not just cancer.  You name a diagnosis, there’s a fundraising effort to support research to cure that disease.  Billions upon billions have been raised in the name of cures and research and we get sicker and sicker.  It’s not working.

There’s already a cure for every disease.  It’s called health.  Unless the fundraising money goes into creating health opposed to creating more healthcare (more drugs and surgery), count me out, it’s a deadend.  If the funds went to supporting families with meals, transportation, clothing, and housing as they rack up astronomical medical bills with the lie that more healthcare will create more health, then I might support that cause but probably not.   Why not just help that family out individually.  Then you know 100% of your funds went to what you actually designated it to do.

With that said, please don’t ask me to donate money or dump ice down my pants for any causes that doesn’t support creating health.  As my friend and colleague Dr. Sachin Patel DC says, “Awareness is not education. To cure or reverse any chronic disease you must first understand that the disease is the product of a process.  Any process can be understood and reverse engineered. Chronic disease develops in a web like pattern. That same blood goes everywhere. Every chain breaks at its weakest link. The goal is not to keep fixing the chain but to stop pulling on it.  A single drug may provide a single specific benefit , whereas functional and lifestyle medicine provides hundreds of mechanisms and strategies of improving one’s health.”

Honestly (maybe), I think there’s a bigger issue at hand that I’m surprised no one has brought up.  If we are in such a global warming/polar ice cap melting crisis, how is it that no one is up in arms about all this wasted ice.  That could have all been shipped to the arctic regions to help preserve and cool the earth.  The polar bears are the real victims.  Isn’t it bad enough to waste resources but you also have to flaunt it in their furry faces by videoing and plastering it all over the internet?  This campaign must have been started by a gun carrying, right-winged, conservative that lives in the south and wants it as hot everywhere in the world as they experience in Texas.

Maybe we should counter the #ALSIceBucketChallenge with a #SaveTheArcticBoilingWaterDrinkingChallenge.  Obviously I cannot participate because I haven’t been nominated.  And because I’ve already set a precedent of denying these requests, you’re on your own for drinking boiling water.  Hey, it’s for a good cause.  Just send your donation money to me directly and I’ll make sure it goes towards something nice, like a nice bath that combines the perfect temperature created from a mixture of boiling water and ice.