Stand Up To Cancer

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SU2C Logo

Stand Up To Cancer (shortened as "SU2C"), introduced at a press conference on May 28th, 2008, is a non-profit charity, website and television special to air in September of 2008. [1] Among the many aims stated by the project, through the press and on its website, is fund-raising for translational research in cancer, with all money raised by the initiative ostensibly going to this research. Other central aims are raising awareness about new advances, connecting and uniting the "cancer community," and motivating the public toward activism against cancer, primarily through donation.

Anchors introduce SU2C on morning shows.
Anchors introduce SU2C on morning shows.

According to standup2cancer.org, the initiative is the result of a partnership of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, the Noreen Fraser Foundation, Katie Couric, Spiderman producer Laura Ziskin, former head of Paramount Pictures Sherry Lansing, Ellen Ziffren, and the American Association for Cancer Research. Major donors include Major League Baseball. MLB commissioner Bud Selig appeared at the press conference launching the initiative.

Contents

[edit] The Initiative

The initiative itself is about several things: raising awareness, bringing people together, bringing about an understanding that the cancer community is not an isolated and disparate collection of individuals but the community at large. The stat used most often by Stand Up to Cancer is from the American Cancer Society, that one out of every two men and one out of every three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime[2], so that everyone is affected in some way, or will be. Another prong is motivating the public through various forms of media to become involved in the cause of curing cancer. A "cure" meaning making the set of diseases that make up cancer manageable rather than deadly from the medical perspective.

One doctor involved in Stand Up To Cancer, Dennis Slamon, MD, has compared treating cancer with treating hypertension:

"If we turn cancer into a chronic disease that's manageable, have we cured it? No, not any more than you 'cure' hypertension. You treat hypertension, and if you successfully treat hypertension the patient may die, but they're going to die of something other than hypertension or the diseases related to hypertension. Does that constitute a cure? It constitutes an appropriate control of the disease so that it isn't what's life-ending."[3].

The initiative has been framed only as a national project, isolated to America, not yet global in scope.

The ultimate goal in terms of research and development is to cut down on the amount of time research tends to take to go from discovery through the lab through clinical trials and out onto the market and into the world. The initiative's funding model is offered as an alternative to the traditional grant proposal and funding process used by institutions like the National Cancer Institute, wherein a reported 2 in 10 grants are funded[4].

[edit] The Funding Model

With the exception of a 10% endowment for possible future investments, the funds raised go entirely and as immediately as possible toward research (100% of publicly donated funds go to research, none to overhead costs), with 70% to so-called scientific "dream teams" in several key and crucial areas and/or organ sites of research thought by experts to be closest to fruition.[5] Teams picked will be subject to mandated collaboration, information sharing that is designed to accelerate that research and the application of the results of the research in the form of possibly life saving drugs and therapies. The remaining 20% will go to innovative "young investigators" who might not otherwise gain funding for outside-the-box ideas.[6]

Teams receiving the bulk of funding will be made up of scientific experts as well as patient advocates and experts in pre-clinical trial data, so that instead of a decades-long battle to get a new theory accepted, funded, applied to therapy, into clinical trials and out the other side, the process will be closer to real-time discovery and application. The key distinction, as outlined by SU2C[7], is that funding needs to go to applicable research at a time when we finally possess a different level of knowledge about cancer and how it works, with access to that knowledge, and also technology like nanotechnology and epigenetics and micro-RNA.

[edit] Manifesto

The Stand Up To Cancer manifesto, a poetic version of the mission statement usually used as an internal rallying document for employees, has been published on the organization's website, clearly meant as a motivational tool for the public in this case. No author is credited on the website.

SU2C Manifesto[8]:

This is where the end of cancer begins.
When together we become a force unmistakable.
A movement undeniable.
A light that cannot dim.
When we take our wild impossible dreams
And make them possible
Make them true
When together we rise as one
When we stand up
When we Stand Up To Cancer.

[edit] Website

standup2cancer.org (or su2c.org) launched on May 28th, 2008, the same day as the press announcement. The website is the public face of Stand Up To Cancer in the run-up to the show and will transition into an as-yet-unannounced capacity afterward. While the site promotes the show, it also stands as its own media platform. The website contains information about the initiative, video channels under the heading SUTV, and an online cancer magazine called SU2C Mag. Content includes videos and articles featuring performers and writers like Larry David and Jerome Groopman, MD. Other promotional material with TV and film celebrities is also prominent.

[edit] Interactive Features

The website has two social networking applications, or "apps": The Stand is a Facebook application that allows Facebook users impacted by cancer to connect with one another via "trading cards," leveraging Facebook's back-end networking capacity.

The Constellation, a tool through which anyone can "launch a star" in honor of someone they know who has been diagnosed with cancer. Honorees' stars cluster or align in close proximity within a telescope-like map of a virtual night sky. Stars can be "launched" for minimum $1 donation.

[edit] Television Show

Anchors introduce SU2C on morning shows.
Anchors introduce SU2C on morning shows.

The three networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, are airing Stand Up To Cancer's one-hour special event without commercials[9] on September 5th at 8pm.[10]

The networks also helped publicize the initiative by plugging it on their morning shows on May 28, 2008. Katie Couric made her first appearance on the Today Show since moving to an anchor position on the CBS evening news as part of the promotional effort.[11] Brian Williams and Charles Gibson also took part.

[edit] Criticism

The heavy attention paid to the use of "star power" inevitably will lead critics to claim that Stand Up To Cancer sacrifices substance for glamour.

Health care advocates have criticized the movement for focusing on translational research instead of public health concerns including carcinogens in our food, water, and everyday household materials. They have also criticized the project's emphasis on "cures" as over-emphasizing research without attention to prevention and health care access.

Though the organization's non-profit status likely prevents it from lobbying on a specifically political level, the language of "movement politics" seen throughout the literature of SU2C's website, press announcement and media outreach would seem to suggest a hope that the fund-raising and media effort might act as a contagion that could spread beyond Stand Up To Cancer to the political spectrum in order to grant public access to therapies discovered by research that is funded.

[edit] Known Donors:

Listed as "partners," known SU2C corporate and private donors include:

[edit] Stats

Statistics pushing out messages highlighting the all types of cancer and the "interconnectivity" hallmark of the initiative of SU2C's media campaign are attached to Stand Up To Cancer's slogan, "This is where the end of cancer begins," persistent in all press material, website pages and promotional documents:

  • Ending cancer would be worth $50 trillion to the US economy.[12]
  • One out of two men, and one out of three women, will be diagnosed with cancer.[13]
  • 1,500 Americans die from cancer every day.[14]
  • One American dies of cancer every minute.[15]
  • There are nearly 11 million cancer survivors in America right now.[16]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Stand Up To Cancer online. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
  2. ^ ACS Cancer Facts and Figures 2008. Retrieved on 27 May 2008.
  3. ^ Stand Up To Cancer online. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
  4. ^ National Cancer Institute 2006 Fact Book. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
  5. ^ AACR online. Retrieved on 29 May 2008.
  6. ^ Stand Up To Cancer online. Retrieved on 29 May 2008.
  7. ^ Stand Up To Cancer online. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
  8. ^ Stand Up To Cancer online. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
  9. ^ "ABC, NBC, CBS Join Forces to Fight Cancer.". Retrieved on 27 May 2008.
  10. ^ "Anchors to Stage Live Cancer Benefit.". Retrieved on 27 May 2008.
  11. ^ MSNBC News. Retrieved on 29 May 2008.
  12. ^ The Value of Health and Longevity.. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
  13. ^ ACS Cancer Facts and Figures 2008
  14. ^ ACS Cancer Facts and Figures 2008
  15. ^ ACS Cancer Facts and Figures 2008
  16. ^ ACS Cancer Facts and Figures 2008

[edit] External Links