Match it for Pratchett - Support an Artist and Alzheimers Research
March 16, 2008
As you may have read recently, Terry Pratchett, who is best known for his comedic Discworld saga, has an unusual case of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Pratchett recently used the fruits of his good fortune in life to donate $1,000,000 American dollars to Alzheimer’s research, a serious and widespread condition with a severe shortage of funding to find a cure:
“I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the Cure comes along. Say it will be soon – there’s nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with dementia will double within a generation. In most cases, alongside the sufferer you will find a spouse suffering as much. It is a shock to find out that funding for Alzheimer’s research is just 3% of that to find cancer cures.” - Terry Pratchett
While the number of people with Alzheimer’s compared to the number of people with cancer is comparable, almost 200x as much is spent on cancer research.
Pat Cadigan has started a campaign to match Pratchett’s donation dollar for dollar or pound for pound, depending on which side of the pond you live—the goal is for 500,000 Pratchett fans to donate either a pound or two dollars.
If you enjoyed Pratchett’s books, why not ditch the can of Coke today and make a donation in the hopes for getting a few more out of him? Head to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust to help match it for Pratchett.
Photo by Myrmi, reproduced under Creative Commons License.
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