Friday, November 14, 2008

Men: are you depressed?

And I don't mean about a serious international incident as Joe Biden promised us if we elected Obama. No, this is the depression we were told about in the Surgeon General's report in 1999: About 20 percent of adults will experience depression during their lifetime. Within this 20 percent, an estimated 6.4 million American men will suffer from depression each year. So you see, you are already a minority in this problem, just by being a male, because women have cornered this health problem.

But there's no money in studying depressed white men even though they would be the majority of this minority--German Americans, Irish Americans or descendants of Swiss Mennonites. So "disparity" is the necessary key word to get funding just as it is in many lucrative health grants. If you can't find it in the lab with real research and cure it, or develop a drug to treat it, then find it in the data, graphs, charts or neighborhood anecdotes and put people into race based studies. On November 6, 2008 there was a conference, Symposium on Health Disparities in Male Depression, supported by a $25,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to alert the various professional organizations, non-profits, insurance companies and government officials of the cultural barriers, stigma and treatment minority men suffer with depression. When wealthy foundations provide this kind of money to launch something, it is the signal that prevention and policy money from the government will be forthcoming for this problem. Oink, oink. Come to the trough, for all is ready.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Depression comes from difference souces. Mine is usually from MS medications that causes depression.

Norma said...

Yes, and men who have had heart attacks experience depression, and men who have lost jobs, or promotions, or experienced a death of a friend, or who are just growing old. But these stats are really broad--cover a life time! Jim, if you were Hispanic and had depression from drugs you take to control your MS, you'd probably be in a clinical trial or research study, not for the MS but because your great grandfather spoke Spanish.

But I'm sorry about the side-affects. . . depression is no fun no matter what your race or disease.