Unhealthy charities

Health charities are big business in America - a $10 billion business in 1990. They receive numerous special government privileges, enlist the aid of an army of volunteers, and, for the most part, enjoy a sterling reputation. But according to the authors of this hard-hitting book, there is a chasm between the rhetoric of fund-raising and the reality of these programs in action. Unhealthy Charities argues that the original mission of the leading health charities - helping the needy - has been subverted in a quest for fund-raising that benefits primarily the executives of the organizations and the medical establishment. Examining such groups as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the American Lung Association, the authors conclude that health charities hinder rather than help disease research - or at best play a minor role in the research arena, despite their claims. Many individual programs are of dubious content and merit. "Public education" programs are often little more than fund-raising efforts. And the poor, ironically, are less well served by our charitable organizations than are other groups. Supervised by self-perpetuating part-time boards of directors who do not have the incentive, the time, or, in many cases, the ability to monitor activities and expenditures, health charity managers have wide latitude to use an organization to further their own financial self-interest. Meanwhile the institutions that provide information about "good" and "bad" charities - auditors and watchdog groups (such as the National Charities Information Bureau and the Philanthropic Advisory Service of the Better Business Bureau) - are woefully ineffective. How much good do the health charities really do - and how much good could they do? Much more, according to this eye-opening book. And with the nation in the midst of a health care crisis of epic proportions, their help is more urgently needed than ever.