Crowds - From Crowd sourcing to Anonymous

“Right now we are leaving about half of the good ideas on the table for lack of resources." I found this article for the NBC news health section about ALS research funding exceptionally interesting. Maggie Fox paints a picture of how the ALS bucket challenge and things similar to it really don’t cure anything in the long run. Even though the ALS Association raised 42 million dollars over the year from the ice bucket challenge, this money won’t last. It won’t fund the long-term research that really needs to be done to find a cure. “These flash-in-the pan things that will go away after a few months will not help ALS in the long run. Researchers need dependable money,” says Dr. Jonathan Serody of the University of North Carolina. He describes that in order for there to be a real change towards discovering a cure people need to consistently send money every year as opposed to just one time. Unfortunately, this money that was donated for ALS research, even though it may seem like a lot, won’t last to make significant strides. In addition to this, Fox talks about how the research budgets are being greatly decreased, specifically by a third over the last decade. This is sad because that means that the resources that are needed to carry on stem cell and gene research are just not available. However, it is stressed that doing things like the ALS challenge definitely don’t go to a complete waste. In some cases hopefully it brings attention to the disease and people will get invested, learn more, and continue to donate to the cause. Basically, the best thing you can do is donate as much as you can annually instead of just once. I’ve wondered about this a lot so it was interesting to read up on.