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Pamela Anderson says no to Ice Bucket Challenge
Committed vegan and former Playboy cover star, Pamela Anderson, has refused to participate in The Ice Bucket Challenge
Unlike other big-name celebs (from Justin Bieber, to Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow to President George W Bush), Anderson won't be getting drenched for a good cause because their "messages don't align".
She took to Instagram to state her case.
"Sorry - I can't bring myself to do your Ice bucket challenge...I found that we may not be aligned - in our messages."
The Ice Bucket Challenge was started to encourage awareness and raise money for ALS, or motor neurone disease as it's better known in Australia. The disease is neurological and often fatal - the average life expectancy is 27 months. There is no known cure. Read more: The disease behind the Ice Bucket Challenge
Pam's refusal stems from her assertion that ALS researchers are testing on animals and she's issued her own challenge to them: "I'd challenge ALS to stop Animal testing."
She continued by saying that recent experiments funded by the ALS Association involved animal cruelty, such as mice having holes drilled into their skulls and monkeys being injected with chemicals.
"What is the result of these experiments (other than a lot of suffering)? In the past decade, only about a dozen experimental ALS treatments have moved on to human trials after being shown to alleviate the disease in animals. All but one of these treatments failed in humans—and the one that “passed” offers only marginal benefits to humans who suffer from ALS."
But Carol Birks, National Executive Director for Motor Neurone Disease Australia rejected Anderson's claims that research has been futile.
"The discovery of genetic causes of MND and the development of animal models which carry the MND genes have been a major breakthrough in the advancement of MND research worldwide," she said.
While MND Australia and the MND Research Institute of Australia do not carry out any research, they provide grants to fund projects most likely to be successful and to provide benefit for people with MND.
"These projects are usually conducted in a University or other research institution and ethics approvals from the institutions are required before the projects can commence."
While some MND research projects funded in 2014 include animals, (fruit flies, worms, zebra fish, mice and rats) "[they] have been bred specifically to include MND-causing genes so the cell biology of the effect of these genes can be discovered and potential therapeutic drugs can be tested for efficacy in modifying disease progression," said Birks.
"Inevitably the animals are sacrificed at a certain stage of the disease so they can be examined microscopically."
People donating to MND Australia can nominate whether their money goes to support the work of their state MND association or to support research, or both.
