Article 1

An ailment, to take off (sales took off), a prescription drug (medication), to interfere with smth, findings, to say something flatly, to dismiss smth as …, to be inadequate/flawed, a dietary supplement, to touch a raw nerve, herbal medicine, a press release, inconclusive, to stand one’s ground.

Article 2

To sniff smth out, health-related, a fraud, to write smth off as …, (a) dispassionate (analysis), to cite smth, to levy a penalty on smb, a breakthrough, to go after smb, a remedy, to get an idea through to smb.

Discussion

1. What do you know about food (dietary) supplements as a remedy for some ailments?

2. What do you think of herbal medicine?

3. How can you explain that the industry producing dietary supplements (even if they are not effective) has become a multi-million business?

4. Why do you think there are health-related frauds?

5. Do you think companies distributing health-related mail-order ads should be held legally responsible for their activities?

6. Do you think people like Stephen Barrett should be supported? Why do you think he had trouble getting his ideas through to the media in pre-Internet times?

Vocabulary.

Article 1 says: “Sales took off.”

Remember other expressions with ‘take’.

To take in (to be taken in), to take on, to take smb for smb, to take over, to take smth up, to take up some time, to take to doing smth.

Expressions with ‘be’:

To be at loggerheads, to be at odds with smth, to be beyond smb, to be in the open, to be off, to be out of date, to be up to date, to be under orders, to be up to smth (doing smth).

12. Translate the word combinations given in italics using one of the expressions given above.

1. The salesman finds it easy (обманывать) old ladies and persuade them to give him their money.

2. I (принял вас за) Ms Gale when I saw you this morning. You look just like her.

3. We’ll have (принять на работу) more staff if we are to (взять) more work.

4. Who do you think (придет к власти) now that the government has been dismissed?

5. That big clock will have to go, it (занимает) too much space in the small hall.

6. The government intentions (всегда были широко известны).

7. I’m afraid this book (слишком трудна для меня). Have you got an easier one?

8. The union still (не соглашается / имеет разногласия с) the employer over the matter of working hours.

9. The chairman and his committee still (на ножах), and it seems impossible for them to reach an agreement.

10. Mary has changed her mind. The wedding (не состоится).

11. Your ideas (устарели), they are stuck in the last century.

12. I can’t stay here long. (Нам приказано) to sail for the island next week.

13. I (не в состоянии делать) such hard work in this hot weather.

Reading and Speaking 2

13. Read the following article and do the multiple choice task given below. Depression Spirit of the Age

Falling interest rates, collapsing confidence and sluggish activity all command the attention of economic policy makers. Seen in people rather than countries or markets, the same symptoms cause much less of a stir. That’s why there is so little outcry about the fact that there are 330m people around the world suffering from depression, 90% of whom won’t get adequate treatment. The disease afflicts more people than heart disease – far more than AIDS – and most cases are not even diagnosed. If this were a disease of the body, an environmentally caused cancer or an infectious epidemic, these figures would be at the center of outrage campaigns around the world. But because depression is a slippery, silent illness, few cry out.

In many ways, depression is a disease like many other. Something in the outside world affects some aspect of the body’s make-up and a normally healthy process becomes a problem. In cancer, it is growth that goes awry, spreading uncontrolled as the body’s checks and balances break down. In depression it is a feeling that runs amok. As a cancer is a malignant growth, so depression is a malignant sadness.

In the cases of depression, though, there is a further dimension to the problem. Tumorous growths can be seen, scanned, perhaps excised; malignant sadness can only be felt. The bit of the body that malfunctions in depression is the one which produces feelings and thoughts; depression is real but it is also subjective. And as a disease of the mind it is terribly sensitive to the attitudes people have towards it. In most of the world those attitudes are negative, dismissive or – most widely – profoundly ignorant of the very possibility that such feelings can be seen as a disease.

There is at present no blood exam, no urine test, no scan that can tell you if someone is suffering from depression. So doctors rely on checklists of symptoms, most commonly those of America’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. According to the DSM, depression comes in 39 different flavours and three sizes: mild, moderate and severe. Major depression is distinguished by at least two consecutive weeks of low mood and little pleasure, along with a combination of weight fluctuation, sleep disturbance, fatigue, poor concentration, guilt or low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts.

Using tests doctors have found that rates of major depression throughout the world range between 4% and 10% of the population, and the chance of developing it at some point runs between 10% and 20%.

Experts have no doubt that a lot of human potential is lost because of depression. The most obvious loss is through suicide. Studies in America show that 15% of severely depressed people kill themselves and that two-thirds of sufferers contemplate suicide. The WHO puts the global total of suicides attributed to depression at 800,000 a year – more than a quarter the number that dies of tuberculosis. You might think this would get governments interested, but it doesn’t. The TB deaths are identifiable and the cases that lead to death treatable, suicidal depression is harder to spot and deal with.

Whether countries fuss about depression or not, it costs them a lot. Estimates by Ernst Berndt at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put the annual costs of depression in America at $44 billion, as much as coronary heart disease. This amounts to roughly $6,000 for each depressed worker, with employers paying 70% of the bill.

Medical treatment accounts for $12.6 billion – the cost of drugs, doctors and therapists. Suicide adds a further $7.5 billion to the bill, through lost manpower. But 55% of the cost of depression is due to lower productivity because of absenteeism and poor performance at work, where low energy, poor concentration, associated physical illness and illicit drug abuse – depression often leads to narcotics as a form of self-medication – take their toll.

While governments turn a blind eye to depression, people suffering from it are getting organized. They are finding new ways to talk to each other, to doctors and to the world around them about how they feel and what they need.

Patient groups can achieve a lot both medically and in terms of acceptance. But there is a long way to go. Public figures willing to admit depression are rare, and a belief that people’s feelings are their own fault still prevails. Anti-depressants, despite the fact that they can help both patients and economies, are often not treated as necessary parts of health-care budgets. One depressed woman in Britain explains the attitudes she encounters like this: “I’ve had depression since I was a teenager, and no amount of therapy or religion has brought me relief. Anti-depressants work, and I will keep taking them for as long as they keep the floods at bay. Some, who know my condition, behave as though I have a dangerous addiction. Do they worry that a diabetic is dependent on insulin? Of course not, because diabetes is seen as a real disease and depression isn’t. The day I reveal my depression, without fear of disdain or discrimination, will be the day I’m cured.” A disease of the mind cannot be cured with chemicals alone; attitudes must change too.

(From ‘The Economist’, abridged)

Choose the best answer to the following questions.

1. What is the main idea of the article?

1. To give some information about depression.

2. To warn people that depression should be treated.

3. To make people realize that depression is a serious disease.

4. To make governments change their attitudes to depression.

2. Why do policy makers ignore the problem of depression?

1. Because few people suffer from depression.

2. Because depression cannot be clearly diagnosed.

3. Because depression is just a side-effect of drug abuse.

4. Because the given disease doesn’t produce any noticeable effect on society.

3. Why must the problem of depression be taken seriously?

1. Because it is incurable.

2. Because it leads to drug abuse.

3. Because it is a burden on the economy.

4. Because it seriously affects the health of people suffering from it.

4. What is the most common attitude to people suffering from depression?

1. People suffering from depression are considered drug addicts.

2. They aren’t really sick.

3. People suffering from depression are themselves to blame for it.

4. They only want to find a substantial pretext to abstain from work.

Vocabulary. Read the article again, find the following words and word combinations in the text and learn their meaning. Make it a particular point to use these words in the further discussion of the problem.

A policy maker, a malignant growth, to malfunction, subjective, to be sensitive to smth, to rely on smb, weight fluctuation, sleep disturbance, fatigue, poor concentration, (low) self-esteem, to contemplate smth, self-medication, in terms of smth, to prevail, a health-care budget, to bring smb relief, to keep smth/smb at bay.

Discussion

1. How can you comment on the following quotation: “As cancer is a malignant growth, so depression is a malignant sadness.”

2. Do you agree that an increase in the number of people suffering from depression can present a certain danger to society?

3. Do you think depression should be treated professionally or would you rather say a sick person can do with self-medication?

4. Do you think taking anti-depressants can lead to an addiction?

5. How can you tell whether a person is suffering from depression or whether he/she is just going through a spell of bad mood?

6. Do you think people’s attitude to depression will ever change?