NEW YORK, May 15, 2002 More than 50 percent of men and women who participated in Pfizers Tune-Up for Life™ free health screening program at Winston Cup stock car races had not seen their doctor in a year or more. Moreover, men--nearly 75 percent of those who were screened--were less likely to visit their doctor for regular check-ups than were women, according to a presentation at the Seventeenth Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension.

Conducted at 39 Winston Cup race weekends in 19 states in 2001, Tune-Up-for-Life is an ongoing mobile screening program offering free information and health screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and erectile dysfunction (ED). Screenings of 24,000 people revealed that 56 percent of men and 40 percent of women had not seen their doctor in at least a year. The screenings also found that 43 percent of men and 26 percent of women screened had high blood pressure and 60 percent of men and 22 percent of women had high cholesterol. Both are risk factors for heart disease.

What is alarming about these findings is the revelation that many individuals, especially men, are not in touch with significant and treatable risks to their health that can pose serious threats over time if left untreated, said Tracie Snitker, Director of Public Affairs of the Mens Health Network. This program demonstrates that Pfizer can leverage non-traditional venues such as auto racing to bring screenings to those who don't usually see their physician for regular health assessments and identify those individuals with health risks.

In an analysis of those participants who said they did not have hypertension, investigators found that 40 percent of men and 23 percent of women, in fact, had high blood pressure. Of great concern, even among men and women who said they had hypertension, more than half of them had abnormally high blood pressure readings at screening, indicating poor control of blood p
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Contact: Bob Schwadron
212-732-6111
Porter Novelli
15-May-2002

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