I had an opportunity to interview the founder Michael Paranzino of the Psoriasis Cure Now foundation. His foundation decided to host an online video competition after the price quotes he received from video production companies out priced his entire foundation's budget for the entire year. Below is the question and answer session I had with founded Michael Parazino.
How and when did you decide to start the nonprofit Psoriasis Cure Now?
I decided to start the nonprofit Psoriasis Cure Now at the end of 2004, and launched it in January 2005, with the goals of increasing research on psoriasis and improving public understanding of the disease. Many people do not realize that psoriasis is a serious disease that can be debilitating.
Can you give us some background information on Psoriasis?
Psoriasis is a disease of the immune system that causes dry, painful patches of skin that can appear anywhere on the body and first strike at any age. If many cases, it also causes arthritis. Psoriasis can lead to depression and social isolation, and may even contribute to heart disease. While it is, fortunately, often mild, it can also be extensive and in rare cases, even life-threatening.
Why did you decide to hold a video contest? Are you excited by all of the submissions?
We sought price quotes from professional video production companies, as we wanted to create short videos that we could show Members of Congress and their staffs to educate them about psoriasis. The prices quoted were way beyond our budget. So we decided to unleash the YouTube Generation on this project, expanded not just to educate Congress but also to educate the general public about this disease.
It was one of the best business decisions I’ve been a part of! The videos are tremendous, and many of them—not just those that win money—will be useful to us in many ways and before many audiences. We will, I hope, ultimately reach millions of Americans with these videos in the months and years ahead.
What do you want people to take away from this contest?
Obviously, our core message continues to be that psoriasis is a serious disease that deserves more research, and people with psoriasis deserve compassion, not ridicule. It’s also important to continue to remind people that psoriasis is not contagious, as much of the social stigma comes from people fearing wrongly that they might ‘catch’ psoriasis. But the video contest is also part of our broader efforts to redefine how psoriasis and those with it are perceived. Our video contest, our Short Sleeve Day events—everything we do is designed to fight the traditional view that psoriasis is, for lack of a better phrase, the antithesis of cool. We may never achieve what Lance Armstrong has been able to do to redefine how cancer survivors are perceived, but his efforts are a great model of what can be done by bringing notions of ‘branding’ to disease advocacy.
Will you plan on holding more contests to raise awareness?
Yes, we will be holding another video contest next year, with a few great twists that I can’t disclose right now.
What will the winning videos be used for?
We’ll distribute the winning videos to Congress, to health reporters, and to TV stations and networks nationwide. We’ll also stream them from our website, and seek other online and offline distribution outlets for them.
Anything else you'd like to add let me know!!
We believe the success of this contest will lead other health advocacy groups to wade in with their own contests. In addition to YouTube’s stupid pet tricks and people getting famous spoofing Britney Spears, you’ll be seeing a lot of medical condition awareness being done through YouTube and other web video outlets. And that’s a good thing!
ABOUT PSORIASIS
Psoriasis is a non contagious immune system disease that causes skin to become red, scaly and painful, and which can also cause arthritis (called psoriatic arthritis). While most people have mild cases, for millions of others, psoriasis is a daily impediment and can be debilitating. As many as 7.5 million Americans have psoriasis, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Psoriasis patients face higher rates of depression, diabetes and obesity and people with severe psoriasis are at higher risk of heart attack. While treatments are improving, there is no cure, and no one treatment works for everyone. Some treatments also have serious side effects. Fortunately, psoriasis is rarely fatal, although every year, some people die from psoriasis or from the side effects of psoriasis treatments.
People with psoriasis also often face social stigma, because psoriasis often impacts appearance. Psoriasis continues to be a punch line for second-rate comedians and writers, even as it has become socially unacceptable to mock people with most other diseases. For that reason, we sometimes call psoriasis the Rodney Dangerfield disease: psoriasis gets no respect.
Research on psoriasis by the federal government has dramatically trailed research on other diseases. While psoriasis funding finally increased last year, in the decade prior to that, psoriasis research actually fell by one-fifth, even as research on other diseases doubled.
The internet has lots of good information on psoriasis, and also a bunch of dishonest, knowingly false material. Be especially wary of anything that promises to cure psoriasis. They are just trying to steal your money.
You can also learn more from here at the Psoriasis Cure Now website.
