Don’t measure me

In 1991 I was called to the Ministry of Health. They wanted to brief me on a piece of work to do with the National Cervical Screening Campaign, about to be launched in New Zealand for the first time.

In a startling revelation, the woman with whom I was meeting for the first time, said “we know that more men die each year from prostate cancer than women die from cervical cancer.  Yet, we chose to do this (the National Cervical Screening Campaign) because we know that men are less likely to make a fuss.”

Around 27 years later, here in New Zealand 50 women die each year from cervical cancer. Way too many.

600 men die of prostate cancer in New Zealand each year and we don’t make a fuss.

We are men. We have the scars to prove it.