Showing posts with label suicide contagion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suicide contagion. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Young Man Actively Suicidal After Watching Brittany Maynard Video

Dear Legislators:


I am a doctor whose young adult patient became actively suicidal after watching a  Brittany Maynard video.

I urge you to vote against legalizing assisted suicide so as to not encourage other young adults to seek this path.  

In the first week of December 2014, a mother brought in her twenty year old son for an emergency appointment.  She had told me that he had been acting oddly and talking about death.

During the appointment, I asked the young man if he had a plan.  He said “yes” that he had watched Ms. Maynard’s video, that he was very impressed and identified with her and that he thought it was a good idea for him to die like her.  He also told me that after watching the video he had been surfing the internet looking for ways to obtain suicide drugs.

He was actively suicidal and agreed to go to the hospital, where he stayed for five weeks until it was determined that he was sufficiently safe from self-harm to go home.

Legal assisted suicide sends the wrong message to young people.  I urge you to vote "no" on H.1991.

Thank you.

Will Johnston MD

Gisele M. Comeau, M.D
Williard P. Johnston, M.D.
Family Physicians
Vancouver, BC Canada

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Question 2 will put the vulnerable at risk

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x1272750569/Coiro-Question-2-will-put-vulnerable-at-risk#ixzz2BCKQGRss

Dear Editor:

The desire "not to be a burden," has been part of all five suicides I have experienced as a priest.  Pre-death interviews in Oregon and Washington show that those who make use of Physician Assisted Suicide there often state the desire "not to be a burden" as their primary motivation.  Not suffering, but rather the challenge of being dependent on the aid of others.

The greatest misconception about legalizing Assisted Suicide is that it is strictly about giving individuals the right to make choices for themselves - that it will not impact others.  The reality is that once suicide is introduced as a legal option in some circumstances, it becomes a more acceptable and likely option for society as a whole.  Consider Oregon.  Oregon passed doctor-assisted suicide in 1994.  Now, suicide is the leading cause of "injury death" there, and the second leading cause of death among 15 to 34 year olds.  The suicide rate in Oregon, which had been in decline before 1994, is now 35 percent higher than the national average.

As one who ministers to the dying and the depressed, I am deeply concerned that if passed, Question 2 will put many more vulnerable persons at risk.  Do you know a teen, or family member, or coworker who suffers from depression?  A yes vote for Question Two would tell those individuals that yes, sometimes the deliberate taking of one's own life is an appropriate choice.  On their behalf, please join in defeating Question 2.

 REV. MARK J. COIRO


Pastor, St. Mary's, Holliston
Read more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x1272750569/Coiro-Question-2-will-put-vulnerable-at-risk#ixzz2BCKQGRss

Sunday, June 10, 2012

In Oregon, other suicides have increased with legalization of physician-assisted suicide

Scott Helman's article about legalizing assisted suicide in Massachusetts implies that doing so will eliminate violent suicides.  I am physician in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal.  Official statistics from the state of Oregon do not support this claim.

Based on an Oregon Public Health report released in 2010, Oregon's overall suicide rate, which excludes suicide under Oregon's assisted suicide act, is 35% above the national average. The report documents that the rate has been "increasing significantly since 2000." 

Just three years prior, in 1997, Oregon legalized assisted suicide.  Suicide has thus increased, not decreased, with legalization of assisted suicide.  Moreover, many of these deaths are violent.  For 2007, which is the most recent year reported on Oregon's website, "[f]irearms were the dominant mechanism of suicide among men."  The claim that legalization prevents violent deaths is without factual support.

Factual support for the above statistics:
Oregon Health Authority News Release September 9, 2010 at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/news/2010news/2010-0909a.pdf and,
"Suicides in Oregon, Trends and Risk Factors," Executive Summary, p.4, at http://public.health.oregon.gov/DiseasesConditions/InjuryFatalityData/Documents/Suicide%20in%20Oregon%20Trends%20and%20risk%20factors.pdf 

William L. Toffler MD
Professor of Family Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland OR

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Teen Suicide: "Assisted Suicide Law Sends Contradictory Message"

From Vermont where the legislature is considering a bill similar to the Massachusetts assisted suicide initiative.

http://vtdigger.org/2012/02/01/page-assisted-suicide-law-sends-contradictory-message/

Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Guy Page, a parent and resident of Cambridge.

In the Jan. 19 mail I received a letter from Lamoille Union High School, where my daughter is enrolled. It begins with the following sentence: “Over the last few years Vermont has seen an increase in suicide among young people.” It went on to describe a school initiative to hopefully address this awful development. I hope they are successful. All of my children have friends, or friends of friends, who have taken their own lives.

My eldest son, Tim, was a constant suicide risk through his teens. Through the wise, compassionate help of state social workers, Tim escaped his teen years alive. I can tell you that he was personally shaken by the implications, to him, of the proposed assisted suicide law several years ago. When he heard about it, my brilliant, troubled son began to shake in anger and almost despair. “Those hypocrites,” he said. “They’ve been telling me all this time that suicide is never OK.” It didn’t matter when I said the law is meant to address another set of problems – his teenaged hypocrisy-o-meter had already pegged assisted suicide as another example of “do as I say, not as I do, it’s all right for adults, not OK for kids.”

Recently I researched teen suicide in Oregon, where assisted suicide became legal in 1998. According to the Oregon health department website, there were more teen suicides after the law passed than before — 1999: 29 suicides. 2000: 44 suicides. 2001: 31. 2002: 37. 2003: 46. 2004: 52. The last two years were the highest two-year period in their survey. Furthermore, 94 percent of teen suicide attempts leading to hospitalization were caused by ingesting drugs – the only form of assisted suicide permitted by Oregon state law. Kids learn from their elders. 
Does this “prove” a link between the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law and teen suicide? No. But the burden of proof is on those who say, “Don’t worry, it will all be OK, none of our teens will think that.” As a parent of an at-risk child, I think this law may unintentionally tell other troubled teens “when it gets too hard it’s okay to end it all.” As the letter from my daughter’s high school says, the real world is a very hard place for some teens right now, and I think this law will just make it harder.

There are plenty of other reasons to oppose this bill. Before my wife passed in February 2011, she was appalled and upset at end-of-life questions asked of her in the ICU that to her seemed motivated by hospital cost-control. It drove a (thankfully temporary) wedge of distrust between her and her caregivers. So Vermont Insurance Commissioner Steve Kimball’s newspaper comments connecting this end-of-life issue with the high cost of health care were chilling. By contrast, Orange County Sen. Mark MacDonald’s daughter was one of Diane’s nurses and provided skilled, affirming care that should be the goal of the state’s health policy. But for me the teen suicide connection is reason enough for the Senate to drop this bill before it does irreversible harm.


Article printed from VTDigger: http://vtdigger.org/
URL to article: http://vtdigger.org/2012/02/01/page-assisted-suicide-law-sends-contradictory-message/
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