Anthony Carbajal- ALS Ice bucket challenge

Sorry if this has already been made a thread, I searched & did not find it.

((Please watch the full video, I know 6mins can be long for some but it is worth it!!))


There are those that are complaining about the ALS ice bucket challenge & to you I have nothing but mean things I would like to say to you, but I won't. This isn't about you & narrow minded thoughts/views. This is about a horrible horrible degenerative disease that no one should ever have to suffer with. I do not wish ALS upon my enemies.

Anthony Carbajal is the same age as me & was diagnosed with ALS. Here is a guy who will never get to do millions of things because of a terrible disease called ALS. I know what it is like because my Uncle had ALS and within a year his body deteriorated so fast and not long after that he was dead. In the end the prayers we said were to end his suffering, which to me is messed up because you are supposed to be praying for people to get better but you don't get better with ALS. My family was dealt such a big loss when my Uncle passed away & it left a big whole in his kids & grandkids hearts. He was an amazing man & got to live many wonderful years before his diagnoses.

Anthony will never get that, his body is already starting to fail him & you have no idea how truly scary that is. Anthony's body will continue to fail him until he trapped in his own body, with no pride & dignity left. He will probably have wished he died an easier death because ALS is anything but easy.

I'm sick but I can't imagine being this age & finding out such terrible news. What's even worse is that Anthony doesn't have the right to end his life if he doesn't want to suffer with ALS, especially if it's slow, he could end up suffering 5yrs with ALS. When our pets are ill/sick/dying we euthanize them but for people, we make them suffer in pain & humiliation. If you have a degenerative disease like ALS or MS, you should be allowed to end your life instead of being forced to live while your body fails you.

Approximately 5,600 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with ALS each year. The incidence of ALS is two per 100,000 people, and it is estimated that as many as 30,000 Americans may have the disease at any given time. Apparently that is not good enough for big pharma to invest in them, they aren't worth it. Who gives them a right to say "no this life is not worth it?" We get all pissy when a women wants to abort her baby because it's a life & it has the right to live, well so do ALS people. They shouldn't have to suffer because big pharma doesn't see it as profitable. Big pharma doesn't see any profit in curing anyone or riding the earth of illnesses. Most of us just twiddle our thumbs and let it happen because it's not happening to them. They think, "my life is fine, why should I care about big pharma" & that is just utter selfishness. These days, more and more people are getting ill and not just with flu's & colds but with actual diseases. Instead of wondering why this is happening, we just twiddle our thumbs and think "oh well, I'm fine, why should I care" but what if this was happening to you? What if you were the one diagnosed with an incurable disease, or worse, what if it's your child that is diagnosed with an incurable disease? How would you feel? Would you care that nothing is being done to cure people?

Between Anthony & myself, I hope that more people will be aware of ALS & will demand that big pharma cures all diseases. After all, it's not like they don't have the money to do so. $8.6 million was just raised in a single day for ALS, yet big pharma just sweeps them under the rug. I hope you will demand action & I hope it's not because someone in your family is sick but because it's out of the goodness of your own heart & that you are outraged that more isn't being done.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

Good thread! I wish I could donate some money also...but really now,I don't see the connection between this challange and disease...And about the diseases,all of this has a cure(cancer,HIV and other "incurable" diseases),but the profit means more for this filthy bastards...I know cases of very rich people or stars who went in the last stage of cancer and they were cured...

originally posted by: PaulTheDuke
a reply to: knoledgeispower

Good thread! I wish I could donate some money also...but really now,I don't see the connection between this challange and disease...And about the diseases,all of this has a cure(cancer,HIV and other "incurable" diseases),but the profit means more for this filthy bastards...I know cases of very rich people or stars who went in the last stage of cancer and they were cured...

This is how it started:

On 15 July a golfer in Florida, Charles Kennedy, was nominated by a friend to do an Ice Bucket Challenge. At the time, the challenge was not connected to a particular charity, but Mr Kennedy decided that the money raised by his ice bucket challenge should go to ALS because his cousin suffered from the disease.

He then nominated his cousin's wife to soak herself and urge others to take it on. It then reached the radar of another ALS sufferer, Pat Quinn from New York.

The 31-year-old launched the campaign with the help of friend Pete Frates, a former Boston college basketball player who also suffers from the condition.

Mr Frates is credited with helping the challenge truly go viral after he posted a video nominating friends and stars including US football player Tom Brady

Video: How the ALS ice bucket challenge got started

Basically it sounds like it started off as the one who is being challenged gets to pick which charity they wanted the donations to go to. Once someone said it was going to ALS, it stayed on that charity.

Frankly I don't it really matters if there is no direct correlation between the challenge & the charity, I'm just so glad that ALS is getting a lot of attention & money raised.

a reply to: knoledgeispower

An awful lot of people who know about the Ice Bucket Challenge, know that it is for this thing called ALS. But of those people who have heard of the viral campaign, the percentage who actually bothered to look into the disease as a result will be fairly small, and smaller still is the number of people who know what it is anyway, without having a familial link to it, or a friend who has it.

Diseases which have such horrific outcomes as ALS are a bane for all humans, not just those who are actually caught in the grip of such horrid conditions. The reason I say that, is that people suffering from ALS are just like you, me, your neighbours and mine, in that we are all, as members of a species, packed full of potential. Any one of the vast number of human beings born today, could turn out to be the next Nikola Tesla, or Albert Einstein, or Da Vinci. Every time a human being has their potential robbed from them by a twist of genetic fate, no matter what the disease is, it robs the rest of us of the potential benefits of having folks around.

Even if you have no heart, no concern for others, it is pretty simple logic that is required to understand that the more diseases like this, that medicine can eradicate from the face of the planet, the more human lives which are lived to the fullest, untroubled by such appalling diseases, the better for all mankind as a whole. I have no significant sum of money to donate, for I am a poor man. That will not stop me throwing a fist full of change (it's just change, not spare change. There is no such thing as spare money), in every collection box, in every store I go into.

With specific regard to ALS, the fact that it is only effecting an estimated thirty thousand people in America, out of a total population numbered at more than three hundred and seventeen million, does not mean that people in the medical and pharmaceutical industries should not be working like dogs, day and night, year after year, to wipe it off the map. What it does mean though, is that for anything to happen, as many people as possible must do all they can to illuminate the subject for those who have not yet heard of it. It also means that everyone must do all they can to force pharma companies to start to view their profits as not a secondary consideration, or a tertiary consideration, but as the LAST consideration, the least important consideration, when formulating their long term strategies.

If the future is to have any benefit over the times we live in today, then diseases like this have to be addressed, and addressed with all the vigour available, without rest or relent.