In a major victory, Ed Bartlett from Men's Health America is reporting that the National Institutes of Health have modified their position on the "gender heath research gap." From the article: "According to William Harlan, MD, NIH Associate Director for Disease Prevention, 'Women have been included with overall equivalency in most observational epidemiological studies when the conditions commonly affect both genders.'...[the] statements came in response to the recent report, 'Were Women Excluded from Medical Research?' by Men's Health America."

Licia Corbella of the Calgary Sun was covering the story about Clayton Giles, the 14 year old boy who is on a hunger strike to protest the mistreatment of children in family court and his own custody ruling that kept him from his father. She wrote an article stating that upon review of the court documents in the Giles' case, she was appalled at the vindictive behavior of Clayton's father, and regrets writing in support of him. You can read her article here (sorry, as of 1/14 the link is now outdated). Clayton wrote an e-mail response to Ms. Corbella which can be read from his diary entry. This is obviously an extremely controversial case.

I received a request from an anonymous reader to help question the Break-The-Cycle organization for presenting misleading information on domestic violence. His message is a bit long for the main index, so you can read it by clicking "Read More" below. It will only take a moment to send an e-mail to this organization asking for the sources of their statistics, and it would help to put pressure on them to change their extremely harmful portrayal of domestic violence.

I discovered this New York Post story about a gay man who won custody of his son who was born though a surrogate mother. NY Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Diamond "said her decision was mainly based on her belief that it's in the child's best interests to stay with his father, with whom he already lives. The mother was ordered to pay child support."

Tony Delgado directed me to this article from Excite News which is about a man who was convicted for domestic violence because he accidentally knocked off his wife's glasses while driving. His wife didn't want to press charges, but the police went ahead and did so anyway. He had to be pardoned by the Ohio governor to avoid being deported from the country. Tony writes "The same reasons that immigration offices are trying to use to avoid deportation of women are now used to enforce deportation of men. This doesn't surprise me, but unfortunately it is yet one more example of how biased American society is becoming against men. Apparently police departments in our country must think that women are sacred and untouchable, not even touchable by mistake."

The New York Law Journal is reporting that a group of employees at IBM who worked in a particular "clean room" and now have cancer are suing IBM and the manufacturers of several chemicals used in the clean room for damages. All of the men are under the age of 30, and two of their coworkers have already died of cancer. The article quotes the lawyer defending the men as saying, "What makes [this case] unique is that this is the first time anyone has taken on the computer industry." For the sake of men's health and to decry the disposability of men working at dangerous jobs, be it in a coal mine or a "clean room" with toxic chemicals, I hope this suit succeeds and makes a statement (and they don't just take a settlement out of court).

This announcement from the Men's Health America list states that an international journal on the topic of men's health is being formed. "The Men's Studies Press will launch a new multidisciplinary and multicultural academic journal in the winter of 2002 devoted to the subject of men's health. The International Journal of Men's Health will publish peer-reviewed papers addressing all aspects of men's health." There are editorial positions open for the journal, and contact information is provided in the announcement.

Rand writes "Here's a review of a book that shatters the myths and feminist propaganda that women did not play a role in slave ownership or were more compassionate to their slaves. Click here to read the review." Honest research into this part of history will eventually force feminists to admit that women have been just as tyrannical and unjust as men through the times.

This is both incredible and disturbing...a 14 year-old, very articulate boy from Canada has created a web site about how divorce and the family court system harms children, including a letter he wrote to a Court Justice. He is also keeping an on-line diary of his hunger strike, which he started on January 1. If this is real, I'd imagine the local media must be covering the story. I'm in the process of getting in touch with the boy and will try to find. out. Update: This is legit, folks - the Calgary Herald had a front page story yesterday that can be read here.

Recently a father from Britain lost a court case where he was forced to pay for his teenage daughter's tuition to attend one of the most expensive private schools in the country (the father was quite wealthy, and was paying for her to go to a cheaper private school, but did not want to pay more). It was recently discovered that the Child Support Agency recommended that Nicole, the daughter, sue her father for the money, rather than having her mother sue so she wouldn't have to pay legal expenses. The UK Sunday Times has the story here. This is probably the most direct and indefensible attack on the family I've ever seen by a government agency. I hope this stirs up some controversy in Britain, and gets some more talking going over here.

Bill Kuhl wrote in about his thoughts regarding Montel Williams and his talk show. Bill believes that Williams has generally been an open minded and supportive public figure for men's issues by the way he handles gender on his program. I'm not too familiar with talk shows personally, but I don't recall ever hearing about pro-male issues (including Choice for Men) being discussed on any other TV talk shows (with one or two rare exceptions). Perhaps his program is targeted to more male viewers, which is probably a significant difference from other talk shows. Click "Read More" below to check out Bill's thoughts, and feel free to express your own opinions in the comment board for this story.

Marc Angelucci wrote an article for UCLA's Daily Bruin on the topic of men's health and the amount of neglect the NIH has given it. It's an excellently written piece with tons of statistics. He even put a plug in for this web site. Thanks Marc!

This article from the Australian Sydney Morning Herald talks about the wide discrepancy in causes of death between men and women in the 25 to 39 year old age category. The article seemed like a positive one if it weren't for the pervasive highlighting of the increased rates of death for unmarried men. While I know this information is true, the tone of the article almost suggests to me that the author may have certain intentions by writing it (i.e, to perpetuate the myth that men must have the "civilizing" influence of a wife to be healthy). Still, it has some useful statistics in it from Australia.

I came upon this news and opinion article which explains various methods of male contraception that have been tried and are being tested. It also explains how the fear of lawsuits and other factors has lowered the size of the potential market for a men's pill in the short term. While it was written last April, it's still an informing read, so please take a look at it.

An Anonymous Reader submitted this article by Cathy Young in today's Boston Globe. In it, Young discusses the recent Massachusetts court decision to expand the "battered woman syndrome" defense to allow victimized women to kill others (in this case her son) and get away with it. She gives examples of other cases where fathers are given harsher sentences for not stopping the abuse of their children by the mother, and also double standards in drug sentencing for accomplices based on whether the person is male or female.