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by tha_nose 2663 days ago
About 1.9 million deaths in the US. About 45K or 2% of those are suicides.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

And people here are saying that is the national emergency?

The US is nowhere near the top in terms of suicide rates in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

If we really wanted to help people, we'd focus more on heart disease, diabetes, etc. But I guess we don't want to tackle the food industry, soda industry, process food industry, etc.

I don't who is behind all the "alcohol, drugs, suicide" scaremongering. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the "solution" will be pump people with more pharmaceuticals.

I'm not saying suicide is not a terrible thing, but it certainly isn't a "national emergency" compared to heart disease, strokes, cancer or diabetes.
5 comments
mbostleman 2663 days ago
It's about what's trending. Recent stats on US life expectancy showed an overall drop. Heart disease and (I think) cancer trended down (as it has for years), but that was more than offset by the up trend in suicide and overdoses. I'm not sure what the definition of "emergency" is, but I'd say the data shows suicide and OD are the top concerns at the moment.
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tha_nose 2663 days ago
The data clearly doesn't not say what you claim. As for trending? I wouldn't call anything going from 1.9% of deaths to 2% of deaths as trending. Focusing on the 2% rather than the 98% seems also doesn't seem to be sensible.
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tdfx 2663 days ago
OP is saying the rate of change is cause for alarm, not the overall distribution.
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JoeAltmaier 2663 days ago
Interesting that Soviet republics figure so heavily on the top of that list. And they uniformly have huge male:female ratios.

Also that Japan, notorious for a suicide culture, is only 30th. Maybe if they counted all the murders made to look like suicide, they would be further up.

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DanBC 2663 days ago
Suicide is a mostly preventable death. Other countries are seeing reducing rates of death by suicide. Why is the US seeing rising rates?
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sdinsn 2663 days ago
Pretty sure I lost some brain cells reading your comment

> The US is nowhere near the top in terms of suicide rates in the world.

... Is that really an argument against action?

> compared to heart disease, strokes, cancer or diabetes.

Because studies have shown that making a small effort will make a large difference in suicide rates... It would be great if we could cure cancer, but we just can't.

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EamonnMR 2663 days ago
That would require people taking a hard look at themselves and their own habits, which won't happen. Hard to scare people with what they are familiar with (even if it's slowly Killing them.) See also: climate change.
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