226. WHAT THE HECK (WTF) IS THIS?

Discovered while prowling around a local Vons grocery store, and rediscovered in Trinidad at a small market. This product is marketed internationally.

If you sit and watch the TV in the US for a few hours, you will be subjected to ads showing tough-looking men in their 60s proudly sporting padded crotches. These are explained not as codpieces for macho dudes with young mistresses but as “male incontinence garments.” Diapers, in other words. 

We all know the story: many women lose urine as they age; their “pelvic walls” were stretched by childbirth. But men have prostate enlargement and tend to get blockage rather than leakage. What is this marketing about “protection” for them? And how can these pads possibly be a $4 billion US industry?

Various conditions, such as Parkinson’s Disease, can produce male incontinence, but the most common cause is a routine complication of “radical prostatectomy” surgery. This procedure should almost never be performed and the numbers prove it. I tell the story in Butchered by “Healthcare:”

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