Saturday, June 7, 2008

American Cancer Society - friend or foe?

I'm part of i2y (imtooyoungforthis.org), which is a great organization that focuses on young adults living with cancer, and the founder, Matt Zachary (an awesome guy) sent us an email about the American Cancer Society. It turns out it might not be the great organization everyone thinks it is - here's an article about how wealthy the ACS is, though it is a non-profit, and here is an article that shows that only 2% of their 2006 expenditures went toward patient assistance services. And of the cancer research grants that they DO fund (14% of their 2006 expenditures), NONE are for young adults. The 2006 salary for the CEO of the ACS is $656, 000, with an expense account of $500,000. 

Doesn't it seem like something's off? And if young adults are the one demographic group that has not had a decrease in mortality in decades, shouldn't at least SOME research grants be devoted to this??

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