Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease is a terrible and deadly condition. However, up until a couple months ago, there was not much awareness of the disease. The moment the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge began to go viral, awareness spread like a wildfire. People dumped buckets of water over their heads left and right, but was it really to help those with ALS, or were some freezing in front of a camera as a publicity stunt?

Let’s be honest, throwing a bucket of ice water over one’s head is not going to help find the cure to any disease. The original idea of the Ice Bucket Challenge was to create a fun way to spread the news about ALS, so money could be raised to run trials on an experimental drug.

Those who are diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease are told they will have approximately two to five years left to live. However, it is possible that with the money raised by the challenge, drugs will be tested that may have the ability to massively increase the timespan.

By using the internet to spread awareness, the Muscle Dystrophy Association (MDA) has a very good chance at not only making a massive impact on ALS, but on so many other muscular dystrophies as well.