Pro-pharma article by some idiot...

[Guest guest]

http://www.epcommunitynews.com/archives/2003/bc121203.htm

To men who don't talk

While spinning the TV dial the other night, big burly Mike Ditka showed up

on a talk show. The outstanding professional football tight end and coach

whose Bears won the Super Bowl a few years back talked about health

awareness for men.

He bantered about his four hip operations but was more serious about his

heart attack.

The message was clear, men better wake up and find out what happens after

40.

Ditka is being sponsored by someone in the health industry, but I didn't

catch it well enough to remember it--well, I'm getting old, too.

Ditka's foray follows an even more courageous one earlier this year by

four-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who remains one of

the funniest and most entertaining sports personalities on TV.

The cigar-chomping funnyman at mid-year this year came out and told everyone

that he had been a long-time sufferer of depression.

He broke a big taboo, because tough guys aren't supposed to talk about such

things.

In a report by Janice Billingsley of HealthDayNews on Bradshaw's May 2 press

conference kicking off a Mental Health Awareness program aimed at men, he

said it was the breakup of a marriage that forced him to seek help.

" Often, you have to have a traumatic experience, and a divorce certainly

gets your attention, " he said. " I couldn't deal with it. "

" I didn't understand that after every Super Bowl victory, I could never find

pleasure in what I'd done. Instead, I immediately began thinking how I was

going to get this all to happen again the next year, " Bradshaw said.

He is encouraging others who may be suffering from depression or anxiety to

seek help.

" It's embarrassing and uncomfortable, and it takes a lot of courage, " said

Bradshaw, a Hall of Famer who is now a co-host for Fox NFL Sunday.

Bradshaw, 54, said he had probably suffered from depression for most of his

life.

Of his recovery, he said:

" No more massive anxiety attacks, no more feeling down, no more stupid

decisions, no more marrying the first woman who's sweet to me. "

Bradshaw has been married three times.

Some of his friends and colleagues in the sports field have chided him about

finally talking about his depression AFTER he got a contract from

GlaxoKline, the manufacturer of Paxil, the medication that helped him

recover.

While it might seem too commercial on one hand, anything to get men to face

up to problems is a plus. Certainly this is a lot better than those

mind-inserting pharmaceutical commercials urging you to seek prescription

drugs from your doctor.

Although depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in the country,

affecting 19 million Americans, or one in 10 adults, it is significantly

under-treated.

Only about one-third of those suffering from depression are getting the help

they need, says Dr. Nemeroff of Atlanta's Emory University School of

Medicine.

" To all you men who are out there, there's help, " Bradshaw added. " You need

to be strong and recognize you need help. "

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is behind the first national

campaign to raise awareness that depression is a major public health problem

affecting an estimated six million men annually.

Some years ago, I was among those six million, and spent a year in a

clinical depression before even getting a clue because I was uninformed and

most men don't talk, even if they do spot the symptoms.

Indeed, it is rare to find a man seeking information about what's ahead from

an older man in our society.

U.S. Surgeon General Carmona said. " We are attacking the stigma that

tough guys can't seek help. They can and they should. "

Research suggests that men are less likely to seek treatment; data also show

that men die by suicide at four times the rate of women.

So the pharmaceutical companies are doing what male society has made taboo.

It's about time.

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