What is American cancer society?

American Cancer Society is a voluntary health organizationbased on the communities and its main goal is to eliminate cancer by preventingcancer and diminishing suffering in those who already suffer from any type ofcancer. This organization also has firmly set goals when it comes to research,advocacy, education and service. The home office of the organization is locatedin Atlanta, Georgia, but it is also organized into twelve distinct geographicaldivisions which include more than 900 offices with volunteers for alloperations, covering the United States along with Puerto Rico. The organizationis also the official publisher of a journal called A Cancer Journal forClinicians. They are also the publishers of another associated journal calledCancer Cytopathology. The society was founded in New York City by a team of 15businessmen and physicians, and it all took place in 1913, but it wasn’t until1945 that the current name was finally adopted. In 1928 the society adopted thesword symbol which was designed by George E. Durant. According to the originaldesigner, the blade stands the crusading spirit of the cancer control movementwhile the serpents stand for the medical and scientific focus of the society. Thesociety handles numerous different types of activities which include variousnotable endorsements, thrift stories for raising money for further operations,health advertising campaigns, grants to various researches and so on. Accordingto certain statistics it is among the top 10 most popular charity or non-profitorganizations in America. The key people in The American Cancer Society includeOtis Webb Brawley, John R. Seffrin, Edward E. Partridge and Stephen L. Swanson.Those who want to find more may visit the society on the internet at www.cancer.org.

Funds, Evaluations and Criticism

The 72 percent of funds for the American Cancer Society wentfor Program Services while the remaining 28 percent were allocated fordifferent types of supporting services. Program Services include 12 percent forthe Treatment and Detection, 16 percent for Prevention, 16 percent for Researchand 28 percent for Patient Support. Supporting services include 7 percent forGeneral Administration and 21 percent for Fundraising. By allocating the fundsin such manner, the American Cancer Society met the Better Business Bureau’sStandards for Charity Accountability according to which they needed to allocateno more than 35 percent of funds to fundraising and overhead expenses and atleast 65 percent of all funds to program services. It is also important to note that this societyhas funded 44 Nobel Prize laureates. The Charity Navigator gave the AmericanCancer Society three out of four stars as they are very efficient when it comesto the elimination of cancer. However, certain debates were held over thesociety’s position on the value of universal prostate cancer screening. Thesociety claims that the current diagnostic tests for such medical problems areinadequate and that the mankind needs a much more accurate type of test.Certain sources also claim that the American Cancer Society is much moreinterested in making significant amounts of money than actually savingdesperate people’s lives. In the year 2000, a certain Dan Wiant who worked asan administrative Officer in the American Cancer Society was found guilty forembezzling 7 million dollars from the organization. During the eighties therewere also certain problems with tax fraud scheme among some individuals. Duringthe nineties there were issues with the Arizona chapter of the American CancerSociety, mainly because it was involved with an extremely high overhead. Theratio of overhead to actual money spent on the cause was more than 22 to 1. Thechapter has actually used more than 95 percent of all funds to pay for thesalaries and various other overhead costs. The chapter was also involved with ayearly inflation which had a factor of 10 or even more. The American CancerSociety issued a statement in which they said that people responsible for thereports that included the aforementioned info were paid by the tobacco industryto do so, without providing any evidence to back up such claims. As a result,the American Cancer Society decided to cut down all overhead costs in all localbranches. Even the headquarters of the American Cancer Society were moved fromNew York City to Atlanta so that the overhead costs of the central part of theorganization could be cut as well. There is still certain criticism concerningthe considerably high salaries for the highest executives of the AmericanCancer Society.

Statistical Data

According to certain statistics, the 5 year relativesurvival rate for all different types of cancers has been increased by 40percent since the seventies. This is all mainly due to the fact that themethods of diagnosing have progressed greatly since those times. The same canbe said for different types of treatment methods.