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originally posted 10 October 1997 WASHINGTON (October 10, 1997 00:28 a.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - Millions of people are walking around depressed without even realizing it, and their doctors and families are missing what could be a serious illness as well, experts said on Thursday. More than 66 percent of people with clinical depression go undiagnosed, but the disease is easily treated, doctors, psychologists and members of Congress told a news conference. "There's 17 million people in the United States who suffer from depression, and less than 33 percent of them seek treatment," Michael Faenza, president of the National Mental Health Association (NMHA), said. Steven Hyman, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said most people still believed the symptoms of depression, which include persistent sad or anxious moods, sleeping too much or too little, appetite changes and fatigue, were some sort of character defect. "Based on everything we know from biochemical science, we can say that depression is not a moral failing," he said. "You can't just tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps." On Thursday the NMHA, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association sponsored a nationwide series of free, confidential screenings for depression. Faenza said such screenings in the past had turned up the extent of the problem. "Up to 60 percent of people screened have been found to have depression," he said in an interview. Perhaps people self-selected, he added -- meaning that those who felt they might be depressed tended to go to screenings. But he said the stigma of mental illness was stopping people from getting help. Senators and members of Congress, opening one free screening in a Senate office building, said their own experiences showed how ignorant people were about depression. "My father committed suicide," Nevada Sen. Harry Reid said. "As I look back, (I realize) my father was depressed a lot of the time. Had we known my father would shoot himself, we would have been more concerned about this thing we call depression," Reid, a Democrat, added. Michigan Democrat Lynn Rivers said her battle with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, nearly cost her the race for Congress when her opponent used it against her. "It never impacted my ability to serve," she said. "This is a disease that is treatable. This is a disease that is biologically based." But Hyman said most doctors did not even recognize depression. Only 40 percent of people who are depressed and who see their doctors are diagnosed and referred for treatment, he said. "Only 20 percent of children going to pediatricians are being recognized and treated," he added. Untreated depression costs the U.S. economy $43 billion a year in lost workdays, eventual hospital stays and other losses, Laurie Flynn, executive director of NAMI, said. By MAGGIE FOX, Health and Science Correspondent Copyright 1997 Nando.net Copyright 1997 Reuters janet paterson 51-10 / sinemet-selegiline-prozac almonte-ontario-canada / [log in to unmask]