There is no more common cry in the mental health world than the cry to destig-matize mental illness. Over and over, primary players in mental health argue that the stigma-tization of mental illness sufferers is the cause of underdiagnosis of those so afflicted and unfair treatment of the mentally ill. The Congressional Quarterly has described the following "victories" in the fight against the stigmatizing of the "mentally ill": 1. The National Stigma Clearinghouse, a network of advocates for the mentally ill, successfully campaigned against giving comic strip hero Superman's killer a psychiatric illness. 2. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill oversees a network of 500 "stigma busters" who wrote in to protest talk show host Ger-aldo Rivera's comment comparing certain mentally ill people to "werewolves." 3. The Carter Center of Emory University's Mental Illnesses and Entertainment Media Initiative asks television and film producers to avoid stereotypes of the mentally ill.
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