The money could have been donated to more common diseases, but probably wouldn't have. Humans are mostly motivated by emotion. The Ice Bucket Challenge captured the imagination of a ton of people and got them motivated to donate. If other common diseases need more money, they should find similar ways to pull at human's heartstrings (obviously they do as well, just not with such a public feelgood novel viral stunt like this).

I moved that image around to sort by mortality in both columns. Somehow it makes more sense to me this way.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rya23mkfihb4ma3/hyU8ohq-reordered....

Except that the Ice Bucket Challenge did not misappropriate research dollars. They created new research dollars out of thin air. There is not much reason to believe that the people who donated in response to the Ice Bucket Challenge would have otherwise donated those same dollars to some other, more common disease.

As usual, Surowiecki does a great job:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/als-and-the-ice...

Heart disease could be cured by spending less money. Less money on food that is. Diabetes too (type 2 at least).