Posted on 06/05/2002 12:57:36 PM PDT by RogerFGay
The formation of the federal Office on Women's Health (OWH) a decade ago has brought immeasurable benefit to American women through its numerous outreach and awareness campaigns. Ten years later, health advocates are asking for a similar office for men.
The need for an Office of Men's Health is acute, and the evidence that men's health is being ignored can't be ignored. According to the Centers for Disease Control, adjusting for age, men lead in all of the 10 most common causes of death in the United States, and women live on average six years longer than men.
Indicative of what activists call men's "silent health crisis" is the way research and outreach on prostate cancer, which is as likely to kill the average American man as breast cancer is to kill the average woman, has been underfunded. Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men, accounting for 36% of all cancer cases. An estimated 180,000 men will be newly diagnosed this year, and 37,000 will die.
However, the federal government spends four times as much on breast cancer research as prostate cancer research, and the money raised by private charities for breast cancer is estimated to outnumber that for prostate cancer 20 to 1. Commendably, women's health advocates led the campaign for the breast cancer postage stamp, which has raised over $25 million for breast cancer research since 1998. Unfortunately, a bill proposing a similar stamp for prostate cancer research, introduced in Congress in 1999, was unsuccessful.
Jean Bonhomme, an Atlanta physician and founder of the National Black Men's Health Network, says men's ignorance about prostate cancer is a major problem and "many men are dying unnecessarily from completely preventable and treatable causes."
In a 1995 survey, 90% of the men questioned didn't even know where the prostate is located. In another survey, offered a choice of answers, only 37% of men knew that the correct function of the prostate gland is to maintain healthy sperm. Two out of every five men over 50--who should be getting a prostate exam every single year--have never been screened for prostate cancer.
Men's inattention to their own health needs goes far beyond prostate cancer. According to San Francisco area physician Jim Eichel:
"Surveys show that men are 30 percent less likely than women to visit a doctor [not counting women's prenatal visits], only half as likely to have a regular physician, and significantly less likely to have check-ups and obtain preventive screening tests for serious diseases. It is difficult for me as a primary care practitioner to intervene--if a man won't come to see me, there's no way I can help him."
Last Valentine's Day, the Men's Health Act was introduced in Congress by Representatives Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA), himself a prostate cancer survivor, and Jim McDermott (D-WA). Since then the bill, which mandates that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establish an Office of Men's Health to "coordinate and promote the status of men's health in the United States," has drawn considerable support across party and gender lines. The bill currently has 82 sponsors, including California representatives Howard "Buck" McKeon, a conservative, and Barbara Lee, a liberal. The bill currently resides with the Subcommittee on Health of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and is one of many which has been temporarily pushed aside in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack.
Part of the reason a Men's Office of Health has been so long in coming is the common but nonetheless false perception that the government and the scientific community have paid more attention to men's health than to women's. In 1990 Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) made national headlines by citing the fact that women-specific health research comprised only 14% of the budget of the National Institute of Health (NIH). She called it "blatant discrimination" and led the successful campaign for the creation of the OWH. What Mikulski and many in the media who publicized Mikulski's claims didn't understand was that only 6.5% of the NIH's budget went to male-specific research--the vast majority of the NIH's research was gender neutral.
Today the disparity between men's and women's NIH research has grown from 2 to 1 in favor of women to 2.5 to 1. The ratio of female to male enrollments in studies, and in gender specific studies, which slightly favored women before the creation of the Office of Women's Health, by the late 1990s had grown to favor women three to two and three to one respectively. At the time the Office of Women's Health was formed and even more so today, more money was spent on women's medical research and issues than on men's at every level of government.
Megan Smith, the Director of Project Development for the Men's Health Network in Washington, DC, stresses that the purpose of the proposed Office of Men's Health is not to compete with the Women's Office, but to work with it.
"Many in the scientific community are moving away from the boilerplate, gender-neutral approach to research," she says. "The trend now is toward a gendered approach, which they believe will benefit both men and women. The Men' Health Act can make important contributions, which is why it has received significant support from many women in the health field. The Office of Men's Health should have been formed 10 years ago. It needs to be formed now, for everyone's benefit."
Glenn J. Sacks
Glenn J. Sacks is the only regularly published male columnist in the US who writes about gender issues from a perspective unapologetically sympathetic to men. Glenn's columns have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Los Angeles Daily News, the Salt Lake City Tribune, the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, and the Washington Times. He writes a regular column for the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal. He invites readers to visit his website at www.GlennJSacks.com
Surprised, are you ?
Unfortunately, only a counter-lobby, similar in make-up, can check the activities of a totalitarian minded elitist neo-Marxist special, special interest group. Soon enough will come the day when "ordinary women " will rue the day the Marxist lesbians hijacked their "equal rights" movement.
...or...in this case, its the biggest whiners get the money. It's the "crybaby" politics of social welfare. She (or he) who whines and cries the loudest gets to suckle on the government tit.
HOLY CRAP... Give me a flippin break.
this is in the top three of my dumbest things of the week list.
Exactly!
let's make everyone 'titty babies' so that they can't/won't think for themselves...
No. but I'm capable of making sure it's taken care of without a feel good, pansy ass, waste of time and money "Men's health act" BS.
the fact that some people aren't capable - and have to rely on "somebody else" to protect and care for them is a major problem in today's society - IMHO.
Take responsibility for your own actions, your own problems, your own health and your own security.
Is it possible for you to try another comment? Either defend your posting and apparent support for this Socialist program or distance yourself from it.
Come on now... don't drop to that level of ignorance.
if you really think that Research, drug development, and treatment depends on this "Men's act" then you are not at all familiar with the field.
there are many many research projects involving prostate cancer that are currently active NOW - even without your precious "Act".
Clinical trials involving prostate cancer
Now please...
Better publicity. You want to wear a pink ribbon...or a brown one?
I'm sorry - but you are dropping to a level of ignorance that I'm having serious trouble dealing with...
No Medical Research? Close hospitals? WTF????
This is stupid. You're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to ignore this crap.
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