Men die on average 7 years earlier than women. Before the age of 65 Men are three times as likely to suffer heart disease and twice as likely to die from lung cancer than women. Women visit their doctors around twice as often as men, and women form the majority of patients treated in hospital. It seems men can do more to help themselves as they leave serious medical conditions too late by not visiting the doctor. Men makeup the majority of accident and emergency cases. More men drive and for longer distances so they are involved in the majority of road traffic accidents. Since men work in dangerous occupations they suffer the majority of industrial accidents. Men drink three times more and smoke at a slightly greater rate than women. Men do seem to have a built-in self destruct mechanism, and although nearly all medical advances have been made by men, it seems the last person that men will help are themselves.
Screening programs are provided for women related cancers such as breast and cervical cancer. However there is no screening of equivalent cancers affecting men such as prostate and testicular cancer. This is very unfair because deaths from prostate cancer are almost as high as deaths from breast cancer and 6.7 times higher than deaths from cervical cancer. The bias is further tilted because research spending overwhelming is in favour of women cancers. The most up to date health targets for the UK include: B1 – reduction of breast cancer by 25%, and B2 – reduction of cervical cancer by 20%. There is not even a mention of prostate, or testicular cancer targets. Men need to demand that more is spent on male health and prevention programs.
Health leaflets published by the NHS and other groups are available in doctors surgeries. Many of these leaflets target women only issues such as breast and cervical cancer. Visitors to doctors surgeries in the UK will be hard pressed to find even a single leaflet targeting men only conditions. Some of the leaflets are obviously persuing an ‘agenda’ . The leaflet ‘Your Health: A guide to services for Women’ published by the Department of Health has a whole page on Domestic Violence: “Domestic violence includes emotional, as well as sexual or physical abuse of women in their homes by partners” it then goes on to give the phone number of Women’s aid and Rape crisis lines. This is classic ‘male-bashing’ in it’s purest form. The leaflet makes no mention that serious studies into this area have shown that women are more likely to commit domestic violenceagainst their partners or children. The leaflet contains no phone numbers to help men who experience domestic violence, or to help women who are abusive or violent to their male partners.