The Scandal Of About 80 To 110 Suicides A Day In The U.S.

Posted: 7/4/2016

Trigger

Just read Against suicide, a century of little progress  Federal report reinforces need for more research, Nock says. The

Some quotes from the above article (emphasis added):

1. “Between 1986 and 1999 suicide rates were in decline, but the trend reversed from 1999 through 2014. In 1999, 29,199 Americans ended their own lives. In 2014, the toll was 42,773, the highest since 1986, with an average of 117 suicides per day. The increase affected every age group.”
2. “In 2014, the suicide rate was 13 per 100,000 people. In 1914, the rate was 16 per 100,000. So the suicide rate now is about the same as it was 100 years ago. … For the past 100 years, despite treatments and research efforts, the suicide rate remains extremely high.”
3. “We have seen mortality rates for other problems or diseases decrease over time; the rates of death due to influenza or pneumonia have dropped enormously over the past 100 years, whereas for suicide, it has been pretty flat. ”
4. “... suicide is the 10th leading cause of death. If we take the long view, it hasn’t been increasing, it is where it was 100 years ago”
5. “We spend, as a country, disproportionately less money for suicide research than we do for other leading causes of death. Although suicide is a leading cause of death, the federal government spends more money on researching lupus, headaches, and Lyme disease than it does on suicide prevention, which is not to say they aren’t important problems, but they aren’t nearly as concerning as suicide is.”
6. “Around the world, more people die by suicide than by wars, homicide, and violence combined. We are each more likely to die by our own hands than by someone else’s.”
7. “Being female increases your risks of thinking about suicide and attempting suicide whereas being male greatly increases your risks of suicide death. So women think about suicide more and engage in suicidal behaviors more than do men, but men die from suicide by a ratio of 4 to 1 relative to women. We do know that mental disorders are important risk factors; depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and impulse-control problems all significantly increase the risk of suicidal behavior. … Take depression, for instance. It’s a strong risk factor, but most people with depression will never be suicidal, so we need to improve our ways to identify which people, given the risks factors, will commit suicide. We’re making some improvements.”
8. “Researchers in the past two years have started to create risk scores or algorithms that are increasingly able to identify which people are at higher risk.”
9. “Two-thirds of people who die by suicide, studies show, told other people they were thinking about death or wanted to be dead before they actually have been suicides. Often people would give signals that they’re thinking about suicide. On the other hand, 80 percent of people who die by suicide exclusively deny they were suicidal before dying.”

Some Additional Context

1. The deadliest, islamist terrorist attack in on U.S. soil in Orlando since 9/11 took only about 50 lives on a single day.
2. By contrast the homicide rate in the U.S. is only around 5 per 100,000 in recent years.
3. Annual car fatalities in the U.S. are about 10-11 per 100,000 in recent years and it has dropped from about 15 in the 1990s

Why Is So Little Done To Help?

1. Is it shame?
2. Is it a taboo?
3. Or is it just a family tragedy and not our business?
4. Is it too private an affair?
5. Just let it be the way it is?
6. Are we resigned that nothing can be done or should be done about individuals seeking to commit suicide?
7. Is it a part of individual freedom?
8. Are we hopeless to help anyone who intends suicide or self injury?
9. Why do we know so little about suicide and or its motivations and causes?

Shame On Gun Control Activists

It is appalling that so often gun control activists who exploit suicides or confound suicides committed with guns and homicides etc.

The Scandal

A civil society that values each human life, born or unborn, as precious, it is not acceptable that so little is done about humans contemplating to commit suicide and their families and friends.