Men's health initiatives were proposed in Congress at least 15 times since 2000:
H.R. 4653 (106th): Men’s Health Act of 2000
S. 2925 (106th): Men’s Health Act of 2000
H.R. 632 (107th): Men’s Health Act of 2001
S. 2616 (107th): Men’s Health Act of 2002
S. 1028 (108th): Men’s Health Act of 2003
H.R. 1734 (108th): Men’s Health Act of 2003
H.R. 457 (109th): Men’s Health Act of 2005
S. 228 (109th): Men’s Health Act of 2005
H.R. 5624 (109th): Men’s Health Act of 2006
H.R. 789 (110th): Office of Men’s Health Act of 2007
S. 640 (110th): Men’s Health Act of 2007
H.R. 1440 (110th): Men’s Health Act of 2007
H.R. 2115 (111th): Men and Families Health Care Act of 2009
H.R. 5986 (117th): Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Act (2021)
H.R. 4182: Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Act (2023)
None of these pieces of legislation ever received a vote. Also, Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) was the sponsor of the latest attempt and he just tragically died from cardiac arrest, which was precipitated by high blood pressure and diabetes. Diseases that this type of legislation would try to stop.
Richard: being that your organization just received $20,000,000 from Melinda Gates, couldn't those funds be deployed in some way to advance male health in the political and social spheres?
Who is the "we" who don't prioritize men's health?
Every woman I know is begging the men in their lives to take better care of themselves.
So it is the "we" in the government? Great. Start with the men on the Supreme Court.
Start with the men in Congress and the Senate. Start with every Legislative body that is dominated by men.
Why do men commit more suicide? More access to guns. Where are the Million Men marching to make sure that we have sane gun control the way the moms are?
If you want men to have less suicide then we need to take guns out of their hands.
Hello Michelle I don’t think he was blaming women for our problems . I think he was just stating the data. Do you take issues that men face? Or the fact that we are discussing them openly now?
Sensible gun policies might be the solution to many problems, but male suicide is a global and cross-cultural phenomenon. Virtually everywhere, men kill themselves at rates significantly higher than women. This is true in relatively gun-free Japan and Lithuania, for example. Some cultures do have much lower differentials, but men are fundamentally different from women and solutions need to be tailored to our innate differences. In My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison asks in song « Why can’t a woman be more like a man? » Today, policy makers ask « Why can’t a man be more like a woman? » We need policies that understand the difference.
Back in the early 1990s, feminists and their male enablers in Congress created the Office of Women's Health, but ignored male health, both back then and ever since. Maybe you will better grasp that issue if one or more of your sons is diagnosed with prostate cancer, then learns that there is far more funding for breast cancer than prostate cancer.
Good job rationalizing and covering up male suicide. You failed to mention one of the major causes of male suicide: divorce. Augustine Kposawa found that the suicide risk of divorced men increased 8 times, while the suicide risk of divorced women remains unchanged.
Normally, the last thing I want is another government program or more bureaucrats. Unfortunately, the situation with boys and men is so bad that I see few options. I could be happy if the decline in the health, welfare,and civil rights of men could just be acknowledged. I would be even happier if the opportunities for prosperous and healthy lives for boys were not actively blocked. The most common availability heuristic that I encounter for the denial of boys’ rights is the number of Fortune 500 CEOs. If every one was a woman, it would mean nothing to anybody except 500 women and their immediate families.
I have finally been won over to the need for more bureaucracy.
Thanks for keeping this about positive attention for the health of men and boys. I think it goes back to another theme you've had going throughout your work which is the decrease in the prevalence of men going into healthcare and social service support. Supporting men to enter both clinical and research fields in healthcare (perhaps especially in the area of mental health) will do a lot to advance the focus on men's particular struggles in public health areas.
And I think it's critical to continue to underscore another consistent point of yours: this is a call for additional attention in response to recent and changing conditions for men, largely due to shifting economic and social context. This is not a sign of systemic victimization of men or an over-emphasis on women and girls. It's not a zero-sum game.
The Journal of Nicotine and Tobacco research has a CfP out for work on sex and gender, looking at why men smoke at higher levels than women, and what can be done about it. I'll be putting in a paper on traditional masculinity and smoking behaviors, but there's plenty of room for more work on the area.
Another thing to add is the ~20 times a men’s health agency was proposed but never made it out of committee. Even the old southern conservative Strom Thurman proposed it long ago.
Once I scrolled on the internet and saw an infographic--"Did you know that 4 in 10 homeless people are women? Let's change that." And of course, I read it like, "So more men should be homeless?" Of course. Of course.
As I read the above comments, especially on cancer funding, I had a grandfather pass away less than a week ago because of prostate cancer. The early signs were flat out ignored. But that's neither here nor there.
I reckon the data on women's oppression has flipped or something (How many men graduate from college these days?)--but it won't be until our society faces an existential crisis that we will wish we had taken care of men--not emasculating them, turning them into pansies, and so on.
The question that must be answered is why there is so little attention to men's health and why would that person think the entire CDC was for men. The answer is actually simple but no one wants to admit it. It's called gynocentrism. We are living in a world where the needs of women, the feelings of women, the safety of women is at the top of the list while the same issues for men is at the bottom. This post is a good example of this dilemma.
The first step in dealing with this mess is to help people become aware of this truth. At this point no one believes in such a thing but just look at the facts of this post and you will have to admit there is something going on.
For more info on gynocentrism there is a great site http://gynocentrism.com that goes into great detail on this. Or you can click my username above and come to menaregood.substack.com lots of good info there also.
"Oct 1, 2014. Welcome to another Breast Cancer Awareness month. Why not Prostate Cancer Awareness Month? Let's look at the disparity between awareness, funding and research between prostate cancer (PC) and breast cancer (BC). The incidence and death rate of PC is higher than BC (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/disparities/cancer-health-disparities). There is no PC Awareness Month (correction: there is one, but is anyone aware of it?) There is no PC stamp but the breast cancer stamp has raised $79 million (https://about.usps.com/corporate-social-responsibility/semipostals.htm). Federal funding for PC research is half that of BC (http://neoneocon.com/2013/05/29/prostate-vs-breast-cancer/) although the authors point out the median age of death is perhaps the reason why. Bullocks. Federal BC funding alone is about 50% of the funding for all other cancers combined (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding). The same is true for private funding (ob cit.) The gender gap in cancer is well recognized and not new; in 2007 Bloomberg reported ... "This year 218,890 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. By comparison, 178,480 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in women. Not a huge difference, but a new report finds that for every prostate cancer drug on the market, there are seven used to treat breast cancer, and federal spending on breast cancer research outpaces prostate cancer spending by a ratio of nearly two to one. (http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-06-13/a-gender-gap-in-cancerbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice). The following article about the cancer gap from 2010 cites a much closer incidence of death among BC and PC. It unfortunately explains away the disparity in funding as because women are more vocal and men don't address their issues so directly and openly. (http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/05/breast-cancer-receives-much-more-research-funding-publicity-than-prostate-cancer-despite-similar-number-of-victims/). We constantly hear how women, girls, and children "need a voice" but never the same for men. Well, here's a good reason to speak up for men, and to help them have a voice.
Presuming the disparity in research and funding can be addressed by men speaking out, please share this widely. Please help men speak up and make a change.
I hope the comments will include resources for men (and women) so they can speak up for more funding and research for prostate cancer. "
You are correct to promote a new focus on men's (and boy's) health. That's important to us all. How about a list of specifics that reflects their current vulnerabilities, issues and opportunities?
Ruth Schimel PhD - Dissertation on how people can express their capacity for courage.
Congressman Donald Payne chaired the Congressional Men's Health Caucus. Sadly, he recently passed away at age 65. The new Chair is Congressman Troy Carter. The late Congressman Payne had introduced the Men's Health Awareness and Improvement Act, HR 4182. He was working on the State of Men's Health Act as well, but that has not been introduced yet.
Just look at the difference in publicity and public awareness between breast cancer and prostate cancer. Or the 2012 USPSTF recommendations re minimizing PSA testing, which has resulted in a spike of stage 3 & 4 prostate cancer due to lack of early detection.
There is controversy over this, but the USPSTF recommended against PSA testing because they found the PSA tests did not decrease prostate cancer deaths, but did INCREASE false positives and caused a great deal of extra pain, anxiety, and financial cost.
Actually, they've recenty recommended less fequent testing for ovarion cancer (pap smears) as well. I'm guessing this has much more to do with Big Insurance than gender. Medical Insurance companies would rather you die than be on expensive treatments for a decade. Yay capitalism!
The US spends twice as much money on "medical care" as any other country, and the results are worse. See US obesity and declining longevity. "Medical Care" is not healthcare. We know what makes people healthy and it's not going to medical clinics and getting more cancer screening.
The universal Pareto ratio applies: About 20% of the money and time spent on American medical care is valuable and substantive and about 80% is bullshit. Read "Medical Nihilism" by Jacob Stegenga and "Medical Reversal" by Vinay Prasad.
We’ve been calling for this in the field for quite some time (going on 15 years since I’ve been involved….but goes back further). Our message fell on out-of-tune ears. Glad the message is here. However, the efforts we have are disaggregated. We need a solidarity movement in the field first and then a big push with Congress.
The solidaruty in a movement is needed world wide .a group of grannies fighting for their sons and all men's rights tried to unite fb groups into 1 voice for men who may not always agree however have the best interest of our men . At the very least a mi sister for men .egos and agendas got in the way sadly .I just hope someone can get this together ..it's the only way forward
Per my earlier post...
Men's health initiatives were proposed in Congress at least 15 times since 2000:
H.R. 4653 (106th): Men’s Health Act of 2000
S. 2925 (106th): Men’s Health Act of 2000
H.R. 632 (107th): Men’s Health Act of 2001
S. 2616 (107th): Men’s Health Act of 2002
S. 1028 (108th): Men’s Health Act of 2003
H.R. 1734 (108th): Men’s Health Act of 2003
H.R. 457 (109th): Men’s Health Act of 2005
S. 228 (109th): Men’s Health Act of 2005
H.R. 5624 (109th): Men’s Health Act of 2006
H.R. 789 (110th): Office of Men’s Health Act of 2007
S. 640 (110th): Men’s Health Act of 2007
H.R. 1440 (110th): Men’s Health Act of 2007
H.R. 2115 (111th): Men and Families Health Care Act of 2009
H.R. 5986 (117th): Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Act (2021)
H.R. 4182: Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Act (2023)
None of these pieces of legislation ever received a vote. Also, Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) was the sponsor of the latest attempt and he just tragically died from cardiac arrest, which was precipitated by high blood pressure and diabetes. Diseases that this type of legislation would try to stop.
Richard: being that your organization just received $20,000,000 from Melinda Gates, couldn't those funds be deployed in some way to advance male health in the political and social spheres?
Who is the "we" who don't prioritize men's health?
Every woman I know is begging the men in their lives to take better care of themselves.
So it is the "we" in the government? Great. Start with the men on the Supreme Court.
Start with the men in Congress and the Senate. Start with every Legislative body that is dominated by men.
Why do men commit more suicide? More access to guns. Where are the Million Men marching to make sure that we have sane gun control the way the moms are?
If you want men to have less suicide then we need to take guns out of their hands.
Hello Michelle I don’t think he was blaming women for our problems . I think he was just stating the data. Do you take issues that men face? Or the fact that we are discussing them openly now?
Sensible gun policies might be the solution to many problems, but male suicide is a global and cross-cultural phenomenon. Virtually everywhere, men kill themselves at rates significantly higher than women. This is true in relatively gun-free Japan and Lithuania, for example. Some cultures do have much lower differentials, but men are fundamentally different from women and solutions need to be tailored to our innate differences. In My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison asks in song « Why can’t a woman be more like a man? » Today, policy makers ask « Why can’t a man be more like a woman? » We need policies that understand the difference.
Back in the early 1990s, feminists and their male enablers in Congress created the Office of Women's Health, but ignored male health, both back then and ever since. Maybe you will better grasp that issue if one or more of your sons is diagnosed with prostate cancer, then learns that there is far more funding for breast cancer than prostate cancer.
Good job rationalizing and covering up male suicide. You failed to mention one of the major causes of male suicide: divorce. Augustine Kposawa found that the suicide risk of divorced men increased 8 times, while the suicide risk of divorced women remains unchanged.
Normally, the last thing I want is another government program or more bureaucrats. Unfortunately, the situation with boys and men is so bad that I see few options. I could be happy if the decline in the health, welfare,and civil rights of men could just be acknowledged. I would be even happier if the opportunities for prosperous and healthy lives for boys were not actively blocked. The most common availability heuristic that I encounter for the denial of boys’ rights is the number of Fortune 500 CEOs. If every one was a woman, it would mean nothing to anybody except 500 women and their immediate families.
I have finally been won over to the need for more bureaucracy.
Thanks for keeping this about positive attention for the health of men and boys. I think it goes back to another theme you've had going throughout your work which is the decrease in the prevalence of men going into healthcare and social service support. Supporting men to enter both clinical and research fields in healthcare (perhaps especially in the area of mental health) will do a lot to advance the focus on men's particular struggles in public health areas.
And I think it's critical to continue to underscore another consistent point of yours: this is a call for additional attention in response to recent and changing conditions for men, largely due to shifting economic and social context. This is not a sign of systemic victimization of men or an over-emphasis on women and girls. It's not a zero-sum game.
The Journal of Nicotine and Tobacco research has a CfP out for work on sex and gender, looking at why men smoke at higher levels than women, and what can be done about it. I'll be putting in a paper on traditional masculinity and smoking behaviors, but there's plenty of room for more work on the area.
Excellent piece.
Another thing to add is the ~20 times a men’s health agency was proposed but never made it out of committee. Even the old southern conservative Strom Thurman proposed it long ago.
I’ll send you a slide with the info next week.
Once I scrolled on the internet and saw an infographic--"Did you know that 4 in 10 homeless people are women? Let's change that." And of course, I read it like, "So more men should be homeless?" Of course. Of course.
As I read the above comments, especially on cancer funding, I had a grandfather pass away less than a week ago because of prostate cancer. The early signs were flat out ignored. But that's neither here nor there.
I reckon the data on women's oppression has flipped or something (How many men graduate from college these days?)--but it won't be until our society faces an existential crisis that we will wish we had taken care of men--not emasculating them, turning them into pansies, and so on.
The question that must be answered is why there is so little attention to men's health and why would that person think the entire CDC was for men. The answer is actually simple but no one wants to admit it. It's called gynocentrism. We are living in a world where the needs of women, the feelings of women, the safety of women is at the top of the list while the same issues for men is at the bottom. This post is a good example of this dilemma.
The first step in dealing with this mess is to help people become aware of this truth. At this point no one believes in such a thing but just look at the facts of this post and you will have to admit there is something going on.
For more info on gynocentrism there is a great site http://gynocentrism.com that goes into great detail on this. Or you can click my username above and come to menaregood.substack.com lots of good info there also.
I posted this on FB in 2014.
"Oct 1, 2014. Welcome to another Breast Cancer Awareness month. Why not Prostate Cancer Awareness Month? Let's look at the disparity between awareness, funding and research between prostate cancer (PC) and breast cancer (BC). The incidence and death rate of PC is higher than BC (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/disparities/cancer-health-disparities). There is no PC Awareness Month (correction: there is one, but is anyone aware of it?) There is no PC stamp but the breast cancer stamp has raised $79 million (https://about.usps.com/corporate-social-responsibility/semipostals.htm). Federal funding for PC research is half that of BC (http://neoneocon.com/2013/05/29/prostate-vs-breast-cancer/) although the authors point out the median age of death is perhaps the reason why. Bullocks. Federal BC funding alone is about 50% of the funding for all other cancers combined (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding). The same is true for private funding (ob cit.) The gender gap in cancer is well recognized and not new; in 2007 Bloomberg reported ... "This year 218,890 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. By comparison, 178,480 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in women. Not a huge difference, but a new report finds that for every prostate cancer drug on the market, there are seven used to treat breast cancer, and federal spending on breast cancer research outpaces prostate cancer spending by a ratio of nearly two to one. (http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-06-13/a-gender-gap-in-cancerbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice). The following article about the cancer gap from 2010 cites a much closer incidence of death among BC and PC. It unfortunately explains away the disparity in funding as because women are more vocal and men don't address their issues so directly and openly. (http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/05/breast-cancer-receives-much-more-research-funding-publicity-than-prostate-cancer-despite-similar-number-of-victims/). We constantly hear how women, girls, and children "need a voice" but never the same for men. Well, here's a good reason to speak up for men, and to help them have a voice.
Presuming the disparity in research and funding can be addressed by men speaking out, please share this widely. Please help men speak up and make a change.
I hope the comments will include resources for men (and women) so they can speak up for more funding and research for prostate cancer. "
The American Cancer Society alone spends 2 times more on breast cancer than prostate cancer, and they announce that on their site.
You are correct to promote a new focus on men's (and boy's) health. That's important to us all. How about a list of specifics that reflects their current vulnerabilities, issues and opportunities?
Ruth Schimel PhD - Dissertation on how people can express their capacity for courage.
Congressman Donald Payne chaired the Congressional Men's Health Caucus. Sadly, he recently passed away at age 65. The new Chair is Congressman Troy Carter. The late Congressman Payne had introduced the Men's Health Awareness and Improvement Act, HR 4182. He was working on the State of Men's Health Act as well, but that has not been introduced yet.
Just look at the difference in publicity and public awareness between breast cancer and prostate cancer. Or the 2012 USPSTF recommendations re minimizing PSA testing, which has resulted in a spike of stage 3 & 4 prostate cancer due to lack of early detection.
See my comment above
There is controversy over this, but the USPSTF recommended against PSA testing because they found the PSA tests did not decrease prostate cancer deaths, but did INCREASE false positives and caused a great deal of extra pain, anxiety, and financial cost.
Actually, they've recenty recommended less fequent testing for ovarion cancer (pap smears) as well. I'm guessing this has much more to do with Big Insurance than gender. Medical Insurance companies would rather you die than be on expensive treatments for a decade. Yay capitalism!
But instead of spending money to find an improvement on the PSA test, they decided to recommend against it. Institutionalized misandry at work.
The US spends twice as much money on "medical care" as any other country, and the results are worse. See US obesity and declining longevity. "Medical Care" is not healthcare. We know what makes people healthy and it's not going to medical clinics and getting more cancer screening.
The universal Pareto ratio applies: About 20% of the money and time spent on American medical care is valuable and substantive and about 80% is bullshit. Read "Medical Nihilism" by Jacob Stegenga and "Medical Reversal" by Vinay Prasad.
True, that was Obama's handiwork.
We’ve been calling for this in the field for quite some time (going on 15 years since I’ve been involved….but goes back further). Our message fell on out-of-tune ears. Glad the message is here. However, the efforts we have are disaggregated. We need a solidarity movement in the field first and then a big push with Congress.
The solidaruty in a movement is needed world wide .a group of grannies fighting for their sons and all men's rights tried to unite fb groups into 1 voice for men who may not always agree however have the best interest of our men . At the very least a mi sister for men .egos and agendas got in the way sadly .I just hope someone can get this together ..it's the only way forward