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May
Ch. 4, Why Do Men Die Sooner and Whose Health is
Being Neglected?
Excerpts from Does
Feminism Discriminate Against
Men? A debate by Warren Farrell
Myth: Women just naturally live longer
than men.
Fact: In 1920, American men died only one
year sooner than women; [i]
now the life expectancy gap is 5.3 years (75.8
years for men; 80.1 for women).[ii]
Myth: The government neglects
women’s health research. Evidence:
Women’s health research receives only 10% of
all health research funding by the National
Institutes of Health. [iii]
Fact: Men’s health research receives
only 5% of all health research funding by the
National Institutes of Health. [iv]
(The other 85% is for non gender-specific research,
such as cellular, blood, DNA, etc.). For example, a
man is slightly more likely to die of prostate
cancer as is a woman to die of breast
cancer.[v] Yet the
government spends almost two times as much money on
breast cancer as it does on prostate
cancer.[vi]
Myth: More of the serious, published
research is done on men than on women.
Fact: In the 10 years prior to mid-2023,
gender-specific systematic reviews were published
on women three and a half times more than on
men.[vii] In the same
period, the number of randomized controlled trials
(the highest quality research) using only women is
nearly twice as large as that for men.[viii]
Since as far back as major computer searches can
access complete records (1965) most gender-specific
research pertains to women. (For the four 10-year
periods beginning in 1965, bibliographic searches
find 16%, 13%, 18%, and 30% more gender-specific
research was published on women.[ix])
* * *
In certain areas women’s health research
was neglected. We were led to believe that is
because we didn’t care about women. The
opposite was true. Men, and especially male
prisoners, military men and African-American men,
were the most likely to be the guinea pigs for the
testing of new drugs because we cared less if men
and prisoners died. That is, we used men for
experimental research for the same reason we use
rats for experimental research.
While dozens of studies are being done on the
possible damage of silicone breast implants, the
causes of men dying 5.3 years sooner are virtually
ignored. Nor are most of us aware of how quickly
men’s health is deteriorating. In 1993, the
gap between male and female suicide was 3.9 to 1;
now it is 4.1 to 1 (see table).[x]
In Great Britain, there is a recent 339% increase
in male suicides by hanging alone.[xi]
Even as we are increasingly hearing that women
die of heart disease as often as men, we are not
hearing that when most women die of heart disease,
men have been long dead. Here are the age-adjusted
death rates for the ten leading causes of
death[xii]
|
|
Male to Female
Ratio
|
|
1. Diseases of heart
|
1.5 to 1
|
|
2. Malignant neoplasms
|
1.5 to 1
|
|
3. Cerebrovascular diseases
|
1.02 to 1
|
|
4. Chronic lower respiratory
diseases
|
1.4 to 1
|
|
5. Accidents
|
2.2 to 1
|
|
6. Diabetes mellitus
|
1.2 to 1
|
|
7. Influenza and pneumonia
|
1.4 to 1
|
|
8. Alzheimer’s disease
|
0.8 to 1
|
|
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and
nephosis
|
1.5 to 1
|
|
10. Septicimia
|
1.2 to 1
|
|
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, National Vital Statistics
Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006,
Table 17, pp. 69-76, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf.
|
Not all of the significant causes of death are
neglected. Fortunately, people feared AIDS would
affect heterosexuals, and affect women equally to
men, and its funding increased. We pay attention to
chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis because we
believe women are more at risk than men—but in
fact, men are more at risk.[xiii]
With suicide, most people know it is predominantly
a man’s method of disposability, so it is the
only leading cause of death that is also
neglected.
Here is my list of at least 34 neglected areas
of men’s health exist:
Neglected Areas of Men's
Health
1. a men's birth control pill (There is 14 times
as much published research on female than male
contraception in the last 10 years despite the need
and scientific viability for a male pill.)[xiv]
2. suicide
3. PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome)
4. circumcision as a possible trauma-producing
experience
5. the male mid-life crisis
6. dyslexia
7. autism
8. the causes of male violence
9. criminal recidivism
10. street homelessness among veterans (85% of
street homeless are men; about 1/3rd veterans)
11. steroid abuse
12. colorblindness
13. testicular cancer
14. prostate cancer
15. BPH – benign prostatic hyperplasia
16. lifespan. Why the male-female gap increased
from one to seven years; solutions.
17. hearing loss over 30
18. erectile dysfunction
19. non-specific urethritis
20. epididymitis (a disease of the tubes that
transmit sperm)
21. DES sons (diethylstilbestrol, a drug women took
in the 1940s and ‘50s to prevent miscarriages;
the problems it created in daughters were attended
to, while the sons' problems were
neglected)[xv]
22. hemophilia
23. ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)
– alternatives to ritalin
24. workplace deaths (94% men)and injuries
25. institutions turning backs on HGH (human growth
hormone) abuse among male athletes/body builders,
the damage of artificial turf...
26. concussions, and the cumulative damage from
multiple concussions (football)
27. male testosterone reduction between 50 and
70
28. infertility (40% of infertility is male; NIH
has increased female infertility research, but has
no research for male infertility)
29. depression (women cry, men deny; women check it
out, men tough it out; women express, men repress).
Rand Corporation finds 70% of male depression goes
undetected
30. being victim of domestic violence;
unwillingness to report battering
31. chlamydia as a creator of heart disease in men
between ages of 30-60[xvi]
32. estrogen transference to men during
intercourse[xvii]
33. Viagra’s effect on heart disease, stress,
and marital communication
34. LSD (lower sexual desire) Syndrome (seen in
more than half of men between 25 and 50)[xviii]
What Our Lifespan Tells Us About Who Has The
Power
Life expectancy can be thought of as one of the
best indicators of real power. When we learn that
non-whites have about 80% of the chance of whites
to reach
85,[xix] we know that
it is because of the relative powerlessness of
non-whites. But...
Item. A boy infant is only half as likely
as a girl infant to live to age 85.[xx]
Item. When a man is about 25, his anxiety
about "making it" is at its height. Here are the
odds of a person living out that year:
|
Odds of Living This Year
(25-Year-Olds) [xxi]
|
|
Females (White)
|
1754 to 1
|
|
Females (Black)
|
943 to 1
|
|
Males (White)
|
561 to 1
|
|
Males (Black)
|
311 to 1
|
Item. Blacks die earlier than whites from
11 of the 15 leading causes of death. Men die
earlier than women from 9 of the 10 leading causes
of death, and women and men are tied for two of the
other 15 leading causes of death.[xxii]
A major reason for men’s shorter lives has
to do with the loneliness and isolation single men
feel as a result of not developing the tools to
express feelings, especially to other men. And
among married men, it is often from the stress of
long work weeks or the manual labor that tears away
at their body when they try to make enough income
so their children can have a better life than they.
This leads less-skilled or educated men to the
“death professions."
How do we solve these problems? First, by
understanding them. One example: the men’s
birth control pill.
* * *
[i] R. N. Anderson, K. D.
Kochanek, S. L. Murphy, “Advance Report of
Final Mortality Statistics, 1995,” Monthly
Vital Statistics Report (Hyattsville, MD: National
Center for Health Statistics, 1997), Vol. 45, No.
11, Suppl. 2, p. 19.
[ii] For children born in
2003, male and female life expectancies at birth
are 74.8 and 80.1 years. U.S. National Center for
Health Statistics. “Table 96. Expectation of
Life at Birth, 1970 to 2003, and Projections, 2005
and 2010.” /Statistical Abstract of the United
States: 2006./ Ed. U.S. Census Bureau. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2006.
[iii]Interview July 14,
1992, with Vivian W. Pinn, MD, Director of the
Office of Research on Women's Health, National
Institutes of Health. not rep
[iv]Interview July 14,
1992, with Vivian W. Pinn, MD, Director of the
Office of Research on Women's Health, National
Institutes of Health. not rep
[v] Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics
Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 17,
pp. 69-76, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf
[vi] United States
Department of Health and Human Services,
“Estimates of Funding for Various Diseases,
Conditions, Research Areas,” March 10, 2006,
www.nih.gov/news/fundingresearchareas.htm
[vii] Bibliographic
search by Steven L. Collins, Ph.D. of PubMed’s
controlled vocabulary index (MeSH Terms) on June 6
and 7, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National
Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov. A search
for “male NOT female” was considered to
be gender-specific to men, and likewise for
women.
[viii] Bibliographic
search by Steven L. Collins, Ph.D. of PubMed’s
controlled vocabulary index (MeSH Terms) on June 6
and 7, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National
Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov. A search
for “male NOT female” was considered to
be gender-specific to men, and likewise for
women.
[ix] Bibliographic search
by Steven L. Collins, Ph.D. of PubMed’s
controlled vocabulary index (MeSH Terms) on June 6
and 7, 2006. Pub Med is a service of the National
Library of Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov. A search
for “male NOT female” was considered to
be gender-specific to men, and likewise for
women.
[x] Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics
Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 12,
pp. 41, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf
[xi]Dr. David Gunnell,
et. al., “Sex Differences in Suicide Trends in
England and Wales,” The Lancet, No. 13,
February, 1999, p. 557.not rep
[xii]Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics
Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006, Table 17,
pp. 69-76, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf
not rep
[xiii]USDHHS,
“Healthy People 2010 Objectives: Draft for
Public Comment,” September 15, 1998, pp. 25-16
to 25-17. not rep
[xiv] Search by Dr.
Steven L. Collins of Pub Med’s controlled
vocabulary index (MeSH terms) on June 5, 2006. Pub
Med is a service of the National Library of
Medicine. See www.pubmed.gov
[xv]Pamela Newkirk;
“A Mother’s Nightmare: The Shocking Story
of DES Sons,” McCall’s, February, 1993,
pp. 93-164.. not rep
[xvi] Hans-Udo
Eickenberg, “Androtropia: Diseases Leading to
Early Death in Men,” paper presented at the
7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February,
1998.
[xvii]Hans-Udo
Eickenberg, “Androtropia: Diseases Leading to
Early Death in Men,” paper presented at the
7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February,
1998.Hans-Udo Eickenberg, “Androtropia:
Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men,” paper
presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging
Male, February, 1998.
[xviii]Hans-Udo
Eickenberg, “Androtropia: Diseases Leading to
Early Death in Men,” paper presented at the
7th World Meeting on the Aging Male, February,
1998.Hans-Udo Eickenberg, “Androtropia:
Diseases Leading to Early Death in Men,” paper
presented at the 7th World Meeting on the Aging
Male, February, 1998.
[xix]See the University
of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, Vol. 8,
Issue 1, October, 1991, p. 1.
[xx]University of
California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, Vol. 8,
Issue 1, October, 1991, p. 1.
[xxi]Almanac of the
American People, Tom and Nancy Biracree, Facts on
File, 1988.
[xxii]Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital
Statistics Report, Volume 54, No. 10, January 2006,
Table C, p. 5, and p. 10, www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_05acc.pdf
© 2010, Warren
Farrell (with Steven Svoboda) vs. James P.
Sterba
* * *
Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow
victim. - Betty Friedan
Warren
Farrell, Ph.D., is the author of numerous
international best-sellers on men and women,
including Why
Men Are The Way They Are
and The
Myth of Male Power.
Women
Can't Hear What Men Don't
Say was a
Book-of-the-Month Club selection and
Father
and Child Reunion has
led to Dr. Farrell doing expert witness work that
has encouraged many judges to keep dads in
children’s lives. Dr. Farrell’s released
Why
Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay
Gap and What Women Can Do About
It in 2005 and
Does
Feminism Discriminate Against
Men? A debate
in 2008.
Warren is the only man in the US
ever elected three times to the Board of Directors
of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in New
York City. He has been chosen by The Financial
Times as one of the world’s top 100
thought leaders, is in Who’s Who in America
and in Who’s Who in the World. He has taught
in five disciplines, most recently at the School of
Medicine at the University of California in San
Diego, and is ranked by the International
Biographic Centre of London as one of the
world’s top 2000 scholars of the Twentieth
Century. He has appeared on over 1,000 TV shows
worldwide and lives in Mill Valley, California with
his wife and two daughters.You can visit him at
www.warrenfarrell.com
or E-Mail
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