Is laughter really the best medicine? "Rx Laughter" has received a $75,000 initial research grant from Comedy Central to find out. "Rx Laughter" is a 5 year nonprofit project being conducted by the Jonsson Cancer Center, the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. With this and additional grants, "Rx Laughter" at UCLA will study how to most effectively use humor to reduce pain and to prevent and treat disease in children and adolescents. Humor will also be studied as a tool to instruct and educate pediatric patients and their parents on health issues, and as a form of therapeutic entertainment to ease the emotional problems that can result from physical illness.

"Rx Laughter" is the brainchild of Sherry Dunay Hilber, an entertainment industry executive who created, founded, and brought this project to Margaret Stuber, M.D. and Lonnie Zeltzer, M.D. of the UCLA Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics respectively, and specialists at the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. Ms. Hilber then approached Comedy Central to participate in this unique collaboration because of their interest in the possible connections between humor and health.

This unique collaboration is the first multi-year project that combines the Entertainment Industry and the Medical Sciences, together with the expertise of UCLA, to study the benefits of humor in research, health education and therapty for children and adolescents.

"We are both happy and proud to support the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center, the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital in this important research study that has the potential to improve the quality of people's lives. We know our programming is entertaining but to think that we may discover that comedy and Comedy Central is literally good for you is a very exciting proposition," days Larry Divney, President and CEO of Comedy Central.

Says "Rx Laughter" Creator & Founder Sherry Dunay Hilber, "Comedy Central is well-known and very highly regarded for their prosocial commitment as evidenced by their successful 'Comedy Rx' program, and their desire to continue to find potential ways that laughter and humor may be used as a healing resource. I am extremely proud and thrilled that an organization of the caliber and integrity of Comedy Central, together with the world-renowned UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center, have agreed to join forces through "Rx Laughter" in this way."

Ms. Hilber continues, "We hope that others within the entertainment community will be as excited about joining in this unique endeavor as well."

Rx Laughter will include participants of all ages, cultural backgrounds and socio-economic groups. This 5 year project will focus on interventions for children and adolescents undergoing painful procedures or difficult treatment for serious illnesses. Using a combination of carefully-selected classic cartoons and television including classic films such as Abbott & Costello, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields and others, "Rx Laughter" will be comprised of three elements: Research, Therapeutic Entertainment and Health Education.

The goal of the 3 elements will be to further the knowledge about the relationship between humor and health, and hopefully implement those results into the treatment of children and adolescents with both serious and minor illnesses.

The RESEARCH element will attempt to verify that laughter can actually aid in the healing process and in pain management. Specifically, there has been some suggestion that laughter can help the immune system fight disease. The Research component hopes to determine if this is indeed the case.

The THERAPEUTIC ENTERTAINMENT element aims to alleviate the stress of illness and to reduce pain in pediatric patients and their families through the use of humor as a coping mechanism.

The COMEDY HEALTH EDUCATION ENTERTAINMENT element will concentrate on educating and instructing the patients abut their illness and treatment in an energetic, technologically interesting and most importantly comedic fashion. The objective of this element is to make the patient a more active participant in his/her treatment by making it more interesting to learn about their illness and treatment.

The Project Leadership Team includes:

• Sherry Dunay Hilber, who is the Creator & Founder, Executive Director & Executive Producer of "Rx Laughter" with experience as a network executive overseeing the creative & management aspects of primetime comedy series for the past 10 years;

• Margaret Stuber, M.D., UCLA Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of Child Psychiatry Liaison Services at Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA;

• Lonnie Zeltzer, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology, Director of the Pediatric Pain Program, the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, and the Associate Director, Patients and Survivors Division, Cancer Prevention and Control Research Branch, UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center.

See the www.RxLaughter.org website for more information about "Rx Laughter^TM"

For more information about the programs at UCLA, please visit and bookmark:

Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA:	http://www.pediatrics.medsch.ucla.edu/
Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center:	http://www.cancer.mednet.ucla.edu/
UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital:	http://www.MentalHealth.ucla.edu/

Other online press information can be found at JCCC Press and NPI newsroom