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'If you met me, you'd never know I was mentally ill. In fact, I've gone through most of my adult life without anyone ever knowing - except when I've had to reveal it to a doctor. And that revelation changes everything. It wipes clean the rest of my résumé, my education, my accomplishments, reduces me to a diagnosis. I was surprised when, after one of these run-ins, my psychopharmacologist said this sort of behavior was all too common. At least 14 studies have shown that patients with a serious mental illness receive worse medical care than "normal" people. Last year the World Health Organization called the stigma and discrimination endured by people with mental health conditions "a hidden human rights emergency." If you met me, you'd never know I was mentally ill. In fact, I've gone through most of my adult life without anyone ever knowing - except when I've had to reveal it to a doctor. And that revelation changes everything. It wipes clean the rest of my résumé, my education, my accomplishments, reduces me to a diagnosis. I was surprised when, after one of these run-ins, my psychopharmacologist said this sort of behavior was all too common. At least 14 studies have shown that patients with a serious mental illness receive worse medical care than "normal" people. Last year the World Health Organization called the stigma and discrimination endured by people with mental health conditions "a hidden human rights emergency." I never knew it until I started poking around, but this particular kind of discriminatory doctoring has a name. It's called "diagnostic overshadowing." According to a review of studies done by the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, it happens a lot. As a result, people with a serious mental illness - including bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder - end up with wrong diagnoses and are under-treated. That is a problem, because if yo

Graphic maps showing voter participation, discrimination lawsuits, discriminatory attitudes of states

'Don Sergio, as people here call him, spends much of his time patiently cleaning and bandaging wounds caused by burns or diabetes. He accepts no money from his patients, because "then they can be calm and they are more motivated to heal quickly," he said. "The ability, the gift that God gave me to do this - that is what gives me results," he said. When he can gather together enough from the donations that support him and his work - including from American expatriates living in Mexico - he helps villages build schools and treat their water. Many of his patients are Mayans from the surrounding highlands, who are among Mexico's most marginalized citizens after suffering centuries of discrimination and neglect.'

Catholic theologian Tim Muldoon: when "social contract" theory fails as a source of social ethics, then - said Martin Luther King Jr. (in "Letter from a Birmingham prison") - the appeal must be to some kind of transcendant "natural law." (I would only add that new views of "natural law" evolve with history and social circumstances - the incompatibility of slavery wasn't clearly seen till the 19thC, of segregation till the 20th, of discrimination against homosexuals in all the rights & privileges of civil society until the 21st.)