Is there Evil behind the Ice Bucket Challenge?

The ice bucket challenge has achieved something phenomenal: bringing attention to ALS and collecting more than $40 million in donations within weeks after the campaign went viral. The challenge was issued to raise awareness of ALS, a disease which has no cure yet. Proceeds will be used for research purposes, giving scientists a chance to have ample funds to fund their studies, in hopes that a cure will soon be discovered.

If the ice bucket challenge has a very noble rationale, how come it is gaining fierce opposition by many groups, especially those from the religious sector?

Is the challenge satanic?

According to Eddie of WorldTruth.TV, the challenge is preclude to the ‘great human sacrifice’ in a satanic ritual. Satanists supposedly undergo the same ritual of as a covenant with the devil. The article also mentioned how the challenge’s co-founder, Corey Griffin, died in a suspicious death, which could possibly complete the ‘blood sacrifice’ in the ritual.

Aside from Griffin’s death, he also claims that more lives will be sacrificed in the ritual; his research supposedly pointed to the abortions being done to help scientists continue with the controversial stem cell research, with ALS providing funding for at least one such study.

Controversial stem cell research

Aside from having satanic overtones, the ice bucket challenge has links to another controversy: that of the one surrounding stem cell research, the very kind of research being done right now to find a cure for ALS.

On Wikipedia, it was explained that stem cells are harvested from blastocysts, which appear 4 to 5 days after fertilization. These blastocysts are ‘killed’ when scientists ‘harvest’ the cells. Although WorldTruth.TV accuses scientists of abortion, the cells are actually taken from zygotes prepared in the laboratory.

What’s evil about stem cell research? Well, it depends upon your definition of when ‘life’ starts, something that has been a subject of debate for many years. If ‘life’ begins at conception, then stem cell research involves ‘killing’ that ‘life’, even when the embryos were ‘conceived’ on test tubes.

Controversial budget

Money-wise, the ice bucket challenge is also being questioned now that huge donations are pouring in. What will the ALS Association do with the money? Technically, ALSA is being monitored by several charity watchdogs who check whether the funds are appropriated correctly.

Various charity watchdogs have different standards and scoring systems but these groups peg the spending for programs and services at around 60 to 75%. ALSA has done well in 2013, reports Fortune magazine, spending 72% of its money on this category.

Political Ears pointed out, however, that of this amount, only 27% actually goes to research. The 32% went to public and professional education while 19% went to patient and community services. ALSA also spent 14% on fundraising and only 7% in administration costs.

The percentages may look alright but according to Political Ears, the 7% actually amounts to $1.9 million – with ALSA employees allegedly earning huge salaries the blog believes are ‘out-of-this-WORLD’.

Fortune theorizes that ALSA should be spending more than $30 million on programs and services by January 2014 (just around 4 months) to hit charity watchdogs’ requirements but considering it spent only $20.8 million on the entire 2013, it would be a huge challenge for them to do so.

In an interview with the magazine, ALSA’s chief chapter relations and development officer Lance Slaughter clarified they have no plans of beating this year-end deadline. After all, this year’s budget has already been in effect. The organization did open 11 additional clinics and had approved funding for various ALS-related research after projecting that the ice bucket challenge would be successful – they just didn’t imagine it would bring them more than $40 million!

Will ALSA keep the money for future use?

Quite possibly, this donation phenomenon would dwindle very soon and might never be replicated again. Keeping that in mind, ALSA would surely want to keep a portion of the money for the future, Fortune magazine believes.

The organization is now facing a dilemma because donors would want their money to specifically go to research; after all, the ice bucket challenge was touted as a fundraising campaign for that purpose.

With only 27% of it actually going to research, ALSA could be hit by disappointed donors who would surely want the organization to allocate more funds to research and not use the money to increase employees’ already high salaries and other administrative costs.

Also, there would be donors who wouldn’t want their money to fund stem cell research.

Faced with ethical and financial issues, the ice bucket challenge puts pressure on ALSA for transparency and for the organization to find other research options.