Donated for vs death from

[kcshocker11]

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and...seases-kill-us Found this comparison interesting in view of the ice bucket challenge

[dregn]

I think the graphic has some interesting information on it and I do agree with the premise of the article somewhat. In fact a part of me felt ALS has raised enough money and I thought about donating elsewhere when I was challenged to do the ice bucket. However, I think the one thing not pointed out and discussed in the article is that items 1 through 3 as the major leaders of death can often be fought on an individual basis by healthy choices in diet, exercise and general lifestyle (i.e. smoking). The primary path as I see it to treat those are as much about education while health advances, even though useful and effective, are more of a secondary path. However, others such as breast caner, prostate cancer, neurological diseases, etc, while some of those can have their chances of happening decreased by health choices, often they occur in otherwise healthy people and medical research is the primary path to treat. Therefore, they often require more money to develop the drugs and genetic studies. I also was surprised how high suicide was on the list versus money raised to treat it. I think it shows what societies views are on mental health and the importance we place on research and treatment of it.

[The Mad Hatter]

In addition to the points @dregn makes, there are several other perspectives that interest me on this issue:

1. In addition to number of deaths, it would be interesting to know at what age people die from each disease on average. Diseases that kill at a young age would seem to deserve higher priority both because it prevents more years of life and attack populations that would be less likely to die from an alternative disease if their current disease were cured.

2. While not always easy to quantify, it is important to note that some diseases harm quality of life at much higher levels, even if at lower death counts. ALS certainly falls in this category, as does Alzheimers.

3. Similar to the quality of life issue, diseases like heart failure may cause large death totals, but may not cause the same level of medical expense as long term chronic illnesses. Just because fewer people die from a chronic illness does not make it less of a funding priority because treating that disease may actually use up more resources that treating the more deadly disease.

4. It may not always be possible to evaluate this issue, but the probability of finding a cure seems to be another factor to be considered. If the disease that kills 100 people has a 1% chance of being cured, should it be funded at a higher rate than a disease that kills 25 people, but has a 50% chance of being cured. Obviously there are no easy likelihood metrics and sudden breakthroughs (that often can only happen because of consistent funding) can change the dynamics quickly, but focusing a big push of funding to a disease who treatment options show promise seems like a reasonable approach.

All that said, the way fundraising actually works is unlikely to take into account any of these issues or the ones raised by the article.