What is Motor Neurone Disease? #ALSIceBucketChallenge
I may be a bit late to the party, but it's never too late to donate:
If you're in the UK: Text "ICED55 £5" to 70070
Or go to: www.mndassociation.org (and GiftAid it if you can)
My personal favourite video from this whole campaign is by Anthony Carbajal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h07OT8p8Oik
I nominate:
Julia Wilde: https://www.youtube.com/user/wildescience
Alex Dainis: https://www.youtube.com/user/Lexie527
Vanessa Hill: https://www.youtube.com/user/braincraftvideo
Music: Vivaldi's Winter I, performed by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players (Creative Commons)
If for whatever reason you feel that donating to MNDA/ALSA will prevent you from being able to donate to another charity that you deem more worthwhile, then I would suggest donating to that charity. Otherwise, let's give MNDA their time in the spotlight.
What the cards say:
Hello! You all know what this is... (Thank you Myles). If you're anything like me, you might not have heard of ALS before this year. That's because in the UK, it's called Motor Neurone Disease (MND) (yes, the disease Stephen Hawking has). It's a genetic disease that we know very little about. We have no cure, and it's so fatal that it kills 5 people every day in the UK alone. We know it causes the nerves from your brain to your muscles to die, but we don't know why. We know it runs in families in 5-10% of cases, but we don't know what causes it. We know of one drug that is of limited use, but we don't know how it works. People with MND start to lose control of their hands and limbs. Then they lose the ability to speak. Then they can't swallow or move or breathe. MNDA, Motor Neurone Disease Association, (the UK version of the ALS Association) not only spends money caring and helping families cope with the disease, they also spend over 1/3 of their budget funding basic biomedical research that might help other diseases as well as MND. So plese, get your phone (I know you're glued to it so it's not far away) and text "ICED55 £5" to 70070 (in the UK only).