National Non-Profit Teams with Hollywood Improv for LA Comedy Competition, Mar. 15

LOS ANGELES, CA – The area’s top comedians will soon compete to be named “LA’s Best!” at a comedy contest with a purpose.

ECAN (Esophageal Cancer Action Network) will present this hilarious showdown, Mar. 15, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., at the Hollywood Improv (hollywood.improv.com) located at 8162 Melrose Ave.

The event will kick off ECAN’s new multi-media public awareness campaign about the great risks posed by reflux disease, a condition many simply consider an annoyance. To send this serious message, ECAN is using a light touch with a funny twist and calling it No Laughing Matter.

After watching the stand-up routines, guests will cast their votes for the funniest comedian. The winner will be entered into a national online competition to choose the opening act for ECAN’s upcoming benefit concert with Jeff Foxworthy – one of the country’s most respected and successful comedians.

Throughout the evening, local ECAN supporters will be on hand to provide life-saving information about the critical link between reflux disease, Barrett’s Esophagus and Esophageal Cancer, and the urgent need for those at risk at be screened.

Every 36 minutes, one American dies of Esophageal Cancer, which is one of the fastest growing cancer diagnoses in the country – up more than 600 percent in the past 35 years. The type of Esophageal Cancer increasing so rapidly in the United States is usually caused by reflux disease – what is often thought of as heartburn.

“This campaign is seriously fun – a humorous way for us to raise awareness about a silent killer that takes nearly twice as many American lives each year as melanoma,” said ECAN President and CEO Mindy Mintz Mordecai, who founded the national non-profit organization after losing her husband and the father of their two young daughters to the disease in 2008. “With No Laughing Matter, our message can reach a larger audience and we believe we will save more lives as a result.”

Event admission is $10 and donations to ECAN also will be accepted. For more information, visit www.ECAN.org/NoLaughingMatter or call 410.358.ECAN (3226).

ABOUT ECAN
A national non-profit organization based in Baltimore, ECAN is led by a board of directors of top physicians, business leaders and families that have been touched by esophageal cancer. Through ECAN’s efforts, April has been formally designated as Esophageal Cancer Awareness Month across the United States. ECAN also published an innovative Guide for Patients with input from leading doctors across the nation, and it successfully advocated with the National Cancer Institute to include Esophageal Cancer in its groundbreaking genome mapping project known as The Cancer Genome Atlas. For more information, visit www.ECAN.org.