Pants down, funds up
(January 15th 2008) Parallel Dimension: Nude doctors and clothed patients shown on a 2008 calendar of Italian physicians, nurses and caretakers of the Pascale Foundation, a cancer research institute in Naples. By posing naked except for striped boxers, dotted pants, sexy stockings and masks, the Italian doctors want to call attention to the desperate funding situation in their country, reports Melanie Estrella.
Sex sells - always and everywhere. So why not take off one's clothes if it serves a good purpose? These may have been the thoughts of some Neapolitan oncologists. No sooner was it said than it was done. By showing off their natural if not quite statuesque physiques, the affable Southern Italian doctors are attempting to highlight the miserable financial situation of their research institute as being characteristic of others nationwide.
The facilities are run-down, equipment is missing, bureaucracy is oversized and personnel is overworked. Only 1.1 percent of Italy's gross domestic product went into research according to a 2004 study by the Italian National Research Council. Of the 22 countries compared, Italy ranked next to last. In comparison, Germany spent 2.5 percent for its research ranking at place eight while Israel invested 4.4 percent, which is the largest budget for science worldwide.
"We want to bring research closer to the average citizen, to allow them to participate," the director of the Pascale Foundation Institute Mario Santangelo told SPIEGEL ONLINE in an interview in December 2007. "Research has to cease hiding in the ivory tower," Santangelo pointed out. "It takes a little bit of irony and humour to reach the people."
Under the slogan "Without you, research is bare" the doctors on the calendar are being sold for 10 Euro at kiosks and bookstores. This enables every Italian to make his own personal donation to cancer research in the country. By the end of November 2007 half of the initial print edition was already sold out, raising 20,000 Euro. The money of the Neapolitan medics flows into the association "Lega per la lotta ai tumori" which is tasked with fighting cancer.
Stripping for cancer in a calendar was first done by a group of older ladies - the "Calendar girls" - in Yorkshire in Great Britain. Posing nude for a calendar they wanted to raise money to help fight leukemia after one of the ladie's husband died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The calendar became a phenomenal success: It has raised over 1.3 Million Pounds to date for Leukaemia Research, the UK's leading blood cancer charity. The courageous Italian doctors actively generating funding on their own rather than lamenting in apathy about adverse circumstances are hopefully destined for success in the tradition of their British "colleagues".
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