Largest International Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Symposium - Toronto Nov. 30

Suicide Trends Among Youths and Young Adults Aged 10--24 Years

Oregon Suicide Rate Remains High

Aiding, Not Preventing, Suicide is Goal of New 1-800 Number

Study Finds Patients' Suicide Requests Lowered After Depression Treatment

Woman Wakes Up from Coma...

www.unchoice.info/resources.htm download free resources online


LARGEST INTERNATIONAL EUTHANASIA & ASSISTED SUICIDE SYMPOSIUM - TORONTO NOV.30. Nearly every leader and significant speaker on the issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide will be attending the International Symposium on Euthanasia "Current Issues and Future Directions" to be held Friday, Nov 30th and Saturday, Dec 1, 2007 at the Four Points Sheraton - Toronto Airport Hotel.
 Organized by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - Canada and co-sponsored by: Co-Sponsored by: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - Canada, NOT DEAD YET - USA, Compassionate Healthcare Network - Canada, Physicians for Compassionate Care - USA, Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare - Vermont, Care NOT Killing Alliance - UK, No Less Human, UK. http://76.163.116.193/Symposium.htm
Register by contacting the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: or call toll free: 1-877-439-3348.
[TORONTO, August 28, 2007 LifeSiteNews.com]


 
Suicide Trends Among Youths and Young Adults Aged 10--24 Years --- United States, 1990--2004
 In 2004, suicide was the third leading cause of death among youths and young adults aged 10--24 years in the United States, accounting for 4,599 deaths (1,2). During 1990--2003, the combined suicide rate for persons aged 10--24 years declined 28.5%, from 9.48 to 6.78 per 100,000 persons (2). However, from 2003 to 2004, the rate increased by 8.0%, from 6.78 to 7.32 (2), the largest single-year increase during 1990--2004. To characterize U.S. trends in suicide among persons aged 10--24 years, CDC analyzed data recorded during 1990--2004, the most recent data available. Results of that analysis indicated that, from 2003 to 2004, suicide rates for three sex-age groups (i.e., females aged 10--14 years and 15--19 years and males aged 15--19 years) departed upward significantly from otherwise declining trends. The results suggest that increases in suicide and changes in suicidal behavior might have occurred among youths in certain sex-age groups, especially females aged 10--19 years. Closer examination of these trends is warranted at federal and state levels. Where indicated, health authorities and program directors should consider focusing suicide-prevention activities on these groups to help prevent suicide rates from increasing further.
 
Significant upward departures from modeled trends in 2004 were identified in total suicide rates for three of the six sex-age groups: females aged 10--14 years and 15--19 years and males aged 15--19 years (Table). The largest percentage increase in rates from 2003 to 2004 was among females aged 10--14 years (75.9%), followed by females aged 15--19 years (32.3%) and males aged 15--19 years (9.0%). In absolute numbers, from 2003 to 2004, suicides increased from 56 to 94 among females aged 10--14 years, from 265 to 355 among females aged 15--19 years, and from 1,222 to 1,345 among males aged 15--19 years.

The findings in this report indicate that 2004 suicide rates for males aged 15--19 years and females aged 10--14 years and 15--19 years diverged upward significantly from modeled trends during 1990--2004. During 1990--2003, the highest yearly rate for such deaths among females in this age group was 0.35 per 100,000 population in 1998.
 
The marked increases in suicide rates among females in the two younger age groups suggest possible changes in risk factors for suicide and the methods used, with greater use of methods that are readily accessible (5). Scientific knowledge regarding risk factors for suicide in young females is limited. Research that focuses on suicide mortality has emphasized males, who constitute approximately three fourths of suicide decedents aged 10--19 years (2). In contrast, research on suicidal behavior among females primarily has examined factors related to suicidal thoughts and nonfatal self-inflicted injuries. One comparative study, conducted in Singapore, suggested that perceptions of interpersonal relationship problems are more common among young female suicide decedents than among their male counterparts (6). Family discord, legal/disciplinary problems, school concerns, and mental health conditions such as depression increase the risk for suicide among youths of both sexes (6,7). Drug/alcohol use can exacerbate these problems (7).
 
Prevention measures should address the underlying reasons for suicide in populations that are vulnerable.
References
 
   1. National Center for Health Statistics. Multiple cause-of-death public-use data files, 1990 through 2004. Hyattsville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2007.
   2. CDC. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™). Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2007. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/default.htm.
   3. Anderson RN, Minino AM, Fingerhut LA, Warner M, Heinen MA. Deaths: injuries, 2001. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2004;52:1--5.
   4. Agresti A. An introduction to categorical data analysis. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley; 2007.
   5. CDC. Methods of suicide among persons aged 10--19 years---United States, 1992--2001. MMWR 2004;53:471--4.
   6. Ang RP, Chia BH, Fung DSS. Gender differences in life stressors associated with child and adolescent suicides in Singapore from 1995 to 2003. Int J Soc Psychiatry 2006;52:561--70.
   7. Kloos AL, Collins R, Weller RA, Weller EB. Suicide in preadolescents: who is at risk? Curr Psychiatry Rep 2007;9:89--93.
   8. Le D, Macnab AJ. Self strangulation by hanging from cloth towel dispensers in Canadian schools. Inj Prev 2001;7:231--3.
   9. O'Carroll PW. A consideration of the validity and reliability of suicide mortality data. Suicide Life Threat Behav 1989;19:1--16.
  10. Steenkamp M, Frazier L, Lipskiy N, et al. The National Violent Death Reporting System: an exciting new tool for public health surveillance. Inj Prev 2006;12(Suppl 2):ii3--5.
 
* Includes self-inflicted asphyxiation and ligature strangulation.
 
† Includes intentional drug overdose and carbon monoxide exposure.
 
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5635a2.htm?s_cid=mm5635a2_e [Reported by: KM Lubell, PhD, SR Kegler, PhD, AE Crosby, MD, D Karch, PhD, Div of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC.
 [CDC MMWR Weekly, September 7, 2007 / 56(35);905-908]

Suicide: The leading mechanism of suicide among children aged 10--19 years was firearms for whites and blacks (Table 11). However, suffocation, especially by hanging, was the leading mechanism of suicide among AI/ANs, A/PIs, and Hispanics. Whites aged 10--19 years had the largest percentage of suicides by poisoning (7.6%), and A/PIs had the highest percentage of suicides attributed to falls (8.1%). Increasing certain protective factors is more effective in reducing suicide attempts than decreasing risk factors. Protective factors include discussion of problems with relatives and friends, emotional health, and feeling close to relatives (59). [CDC, MMWR Surveillance Summaries, May 18, 2007 / 56(SS05);1-16, "Fatal Injuries Among Children by Race and Ethnicity --- United States, 1999--2002"]

OR SUICIDE RATE REMAINS HIGH. Almost 750 Oregonians died from violence in 2005, with suicide accounting for the majority of those deaths.
 
State health officials report that 555 Oregon residents killed themselves in 2005 -- more than five times the amount who died from homicide.
 
Oregon had slightly fewer suicides than in 2004, but the state still has the 10th-highest suicide rate in the nation.
 
Suicide rates are higher among men and military veterans, and they rise steadily with age. Among Oregonians older than 65, the rate is 78% higher than the national average.
 
The suicide total does not include terminally ill people who used Oregon's Death With Dignity Act to end their lives. [18Sept2007, Associated Press, Portland, OR; http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=7089605]
 
Suicide Rates Among Oregon Veterans on The Rise (in addition to assisted suicide cases)
"Suicide remains a serious public health issue in Oregon," said Governor Ted Kulongoski.
 

While the number of violent deaths in Oregon declined slightly in 2005, a new report by the Oregon Department of Human Services finds that suicide remains a public health problem, particularly among veterans of the military.
 
According to the report, "Violent Deaths in Oregon: 2005," 748 Oregonians suffered violent deaths that year, which is down from 771 violent deaths in 2004.
 
Violent death is the second leading cause of death among Oregonians under age 45 and the ninth leading cause among all Oregonians.
 
Suicide remains the leading cause of violent deaths, accounting for 74 percent, or 555 people.
 
Homicide was the second, accounting for 103 or 13.8 percent of violent deaths.
 
Suicide rates were higher among military veterans than the general population.
 
The report found that in 2005, 28 percent of all suicides, or 153 adults, were among veterans, 148 of whom were male.
 
Age-adjusted rates of suicide per 100,000 male veterans were more than twice those of non-veteran males, 46 per 100,000 compared with 22 per 100,000.
 
The report also found that 16 percent of the suicides were among older adults and that Oregon's suicide rate among older adults was 78 percent higher than the national average.
 
Deaths relating to Oregon's Death with Dignity Act are not classified as suicides by Oregon law and are therefore not included in the report.
 
"Suicide remains a serious public health issue in Oregon," said Governor Ted Kulongoski. "We must do more to make sure our returning soldiers get the support they need and that older adults know they are not alone."
 
The Violent Death report makes a series of recommendations to address the suicide issue among veterans, including strategies to train health care providers, increase screening and treatment of depression, implement community-based prevention activities and focus on reducing suicides among veterans and Oregonians aged 25-65.
 
The recommendations build upon the state's work to aid veterans, including an Oregon Military Department reintegration unit that works directly with discharged troops in the transition from service back to the families, communities and careers.
 
Governor Kulongoski also signed legislation this year that increases tax incentives for physicians who accept TRICARE patients, which is the U.S. Department of Defense health care entitlement for active-duty, National Guard, Reserve and retired members of the military, their families and survivors.
 
The bill also establishes a tax credit for physicians who provide medical care to residents of the Oregon Veterans' Home, an assisted living facility for aging veterans.
 
The Governor also signed legislation to expand the amount of federal taxable income military families can deduct on a yearly basis, helping families offset more of the costs associated with a family member serving in the military.
 
Financial concerns are a leading cause of stress for soldiers as they transition back into their communities.
 
Also, the federal Helmets to Hardhats program, administered by the Oregon Bureau of Labor, connects transitioning active-duty personnel and reservists with training and employment opportunities in the construction industry.
 
Other findings in the report include:
 
• Gunshot wound was the most common cause of death, accounting for nearly 54 percent of total violent deaths. Poisoning (21 percent) and hanging followed.
 
• The 748 violent deaths occurred in 731 incidents. Of those, 714 incidents involved one death, and 17 incidents involved more than one death. Among the 17 incidents involving multiple deaths, 11 were homicide-suicides.
 
• Homicide deaths declined from 111 in 2004 to 103 in 2005. Twelve more women died by homicide in 2005 than in 2004.
 
• Robbery/burglary accounted for 8 percent of homicides.
 
• Of the 555 suicides, 440 (79 percent) were males and 115 (21 percent) were female. Nearly all, 534 or 96 percent, were white.
 
• Nearly half of all violent deaths occurred in four counties: Multnomah, Lane, Washington and Clackamas.
 
• 700 of the violent death victims were white, 47 Hispanic and 21 African American. The remainder were American Indian/Native Alaskan, Asian/pacific Islander or "other race/unspecified."
 
The report was compiled by the Public Health Division's Oregon Violent Death Reporting System (ORVDRS), which since 1993 has been collecting detailed information on all homicides, suicides, deaths of undetermined intent, deaths resulting from legal intervention, and deaths related to unintentional firearm injuries.
 
The data are collected from Oregon medical examiners, local police, death certificates and the Homicide Incident Tracking System.
[Sep-17-2007, Salem-News.com, http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september172007/oregon_suicide_rates_091707.php;

The complete report can be found at: http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ipe/nvdrs/index.shtml
Cheryl Eckstein, Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)/ www.chninternational.com/default.html
CHN is member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (WFDWRHL) Dr. Karl Gunning, Pres.]
 
 

Aiding, Not Preventing, Suicide is Goal of New 1-800 Number.

For decades, suicide prevention hotline volunteers have helped talk people out of committing suicide. Now, a new 1-800 End of Life Consultation service sponsored by assisted suicide proponents, including a few Christian clergy members, will offer free counseling sessions to terminally ill Californians seeking to end their own lives.
 
Members of Californians Against Assisted Suicide, a diverse coalition of medical professionals, disability rights groups and religious leaders, say the suicide consultation phone service, announced Sept. 18 at a Sacramento church, represents an extreme "shift in tactics" by assisted suicide supporters frustrated by five failures over the past 15 years to get a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide through the California Legislature.
 
California's most recent physician-assisted suicide bill, AB 374, the "California Compassionate Choices Act," co-authored by Assemblymembers Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine, was pulled from the Assembly Floor this past June due to lack of support but may be resurrected as a two-year bill in early 2008. Some opponents believe Compassion & Choices' End of Life Consultation service is a strategic response to last year's defeat of AB 374.
 
"This effort to put a clerical collar on Dr. Kevorkian only makes assisted suicide creepier," said Tim Rosales, spokesperson for Californians Against Assisted Suicide. "Calling a 1-800 number to get counseled on how to commit suicide, no matter who is doing it, is not only risky and dangerous, but is sure to open the door to numerous questions regarding coercion and liability."
 
According to Rosales, the California program will be similar to a national program by the Final Exit Network, a spin-off group of the Hemlock Society and End of Life Choices, which provides suicide counseling to anyone that meets the criteria of having an "incurable condition which causes intolerable suffering." These efforts typically counsel people on suicide methods such as the use of plastic bags and stockpiling drugs.
 
"End of Life Consultation service is a tactic to assist terminally-ill persons wishing to end their lives. The positive points about ELCS --- advocating for hospice and palliative care --- must not cloud the fundamental immorality of the consultation itself," said Sulpician Father Gerald Coleman, vice-president of Corporate Ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System, and adjunct professor of moral theology at Santa Clara University.
 
"ELCS would like us to think that its Consultation Service is just like any other palliative care program," said Father Coleman. "They assert that ELCS is a service that embraces a broad range of care, [including] comfort, emotional, hospice and family care. While these elements are present, ELCS places aid-in-dying along this continuum, making it just another option."
 
According to a Sept. 18 article on the End of Life Consultation program in The Sacramento Bee, California residents will be able to call a toll-free number where they will be screened before getting advice on accessing hospital care and pain treatment. As stated in the article, "The goal of the program is to help people die. Volunteers, including clergy, will neither provide nor administer fatal drugs, but they will monitor the patient as the self-administered medication works."
 
Though the suicide phone consultation program may keep the issue of assisted suicide in the public eye, opponents doubt it will lead to the legalization of AB 374. "There's still the same amount of opposition to this bill and the prospects of passing it are very slim," said Rosales.
 
Assisted suicide proponents "can't get a groundswell going," said Carol Hogan, communications director for the bishops' California Catholic Conference. Though supporters of assisted suicide assert that polls show a majority of Californians support legalizing physician-assisted suicide, legislative efforts to pass such a measure have met with intense opposition.
 
Doctor members of the California Medical Association have consistently opposed the bill, as have disabled activists who say terminally ill people, especially low-income individuals, may be coerced into choosing suicide.
[http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/092807/assisted.htm, by Paula Doyle; Cheryl Eckstein, Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN), www.chninternational.com/default.html. CHN is member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (WFDWRHL) Dr. Karl Gunning, Pres.]
 
 

Study Finds Patients' Suicide Requests Lowered After Depression Treatment. A new study finds that the number of requests for suicides declines when patients are successfully treated for depression. The research could have a significant impact on the assisted suicide debate as pro-life advocates have long said patients mostly seek help killing themselves when coping with severe depression.
 
Group Health researchers conducted the study by examining more than 100,000 patients treated for depression and found that suicide attempts declined during the first month of treatment.
 
Suicide attempts were most likely the month before the start of treatment and fell by at least 50 percent the month after treatment. Suicide requests steadily declined as time progressed following treatment.
 
The findings held regardless of whether the patient was treated with medication, psychotherapy, or both.
 
The results have an important bearing on the state of Oregon, the only one to allow assisted suicide. That's because virtually all of the patients who killed themselves with their doctor's help in 2006 did not receive any treatment for depression beforehand.
 
"Only two of the 46 patients dying from assisted suicide in 2006 were referred for psychiatric evaluation, yet depression is the most common cause of suicidal ideation," Physicians for Compassionate Care told LifeNews.com in March after analyzing the latest state health department report.
 
Publishing their results in the July edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the survey showed a similar pattern of fewer requests for both young adults (up to age 24) as for older adults.
 
Younger adults were twice as likely to request suicide as older adults, but both groups showed the same patterns in terms of the significant reduction of suicide requests after treatment.
 
Greg Simon, MD, MPH, the Group Health psychiatrist who led the study, says it is a seminal one because it's the first to compare the risk of suicide attempts before and after the start of treatment with both antidepressants but also psychotherapy.
 
"Our study indicates that there's nothing specific to antidepressant medications that would either make large populations of people with depression start trying to kill themselves--or protect them from suicidal thoughts," said Dr. Simon.
 
"Instead, we think that, on average, starting any type of treatment--medication, psychotherapy, or both--helps most people of any age have fewer symptoms of depression, including thinking about suicide and attempting it."
 
The survey also found that patients who received anti-depression drugs from a psychiatrist were more likely to request suicide than getting the drugs from their primary care physician. This shows the importance of treating doctors to patients in terms of their mental health.
 
"That's not because seeing a psychiatrist makes you want to kill yourself," Dr. Simon said in a statement.
 
Instead, it is more likely because patients with severe depression get psychiatric consults while those with more milder forms of depression can be treated by the primary physician.
 
However, this also has an important impact in Oregon as Physicians for Compassionate Care says few of the patients who died in assisted suicides there had a true doctor-patient relationship.
 
"The prescribing physician was present when medication was ingested for only 15 of the 46 deaths; knowledge of complications for the other 31 patients is obtained second or third-hand," the group said.
 
"The median duration of the patient-physician relationship was only 15 weeks, with a range from one to 767 weeks," which the group says undermines the premise of physician-assisted suicide. "We know that many of these patients are receiving prescriptions for lethal medications from doctors that are new to them, rather than from their usual doctor."
 
As a result, requiring anti-depression treatment before an assisted suicide can be allowed and requiring a longer doctor-patient relationship beforehand could dramatically shrink the number of requests for or actual assisted suicides. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study. [6July07, LifeNews.com, #4074; 5July2007, LifeNews.com, DC]
 
 
 

WOMAN WAKES FROM COMA: After two weeks and no change Ryan Finley took his wife Jill off life support and suddenly she awoke.
 
Imagine being 31 years old and having to make the agonizing decision to discontinue the life-support keeping your comatose spouse alive. Now imagine that spouse waking up and asking for Mexican food.
 
“It’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy,” Jill Finley, the woman who was supposed to die, told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira during an interview Monday. “It is truly a miracle that I’m here talking to you today.”
 
On the morning of Saturday, May 26, Jill’s husband, Ryan Finley, tried to wake her up and found her unresponsive.
The couple would learn later that Jill had a congenital condition that had caused her heart to stop. When Ryan realized she wasn’t breathing, he reached back 10 years to a CPR course he had taken, dragged her out of bed and onto the floor, and started to apply those never-used lessons.
 
He called 911 and continued to work on his lifeless wife until paramedics arrived and shocked her heart back to life. They rushed her to the Oklahoma Heart Hospital, where the medical staff put her on a respirator and dressed her in a special suit that lowered her body temperature to attempt to minimize damage to her brain caused by lack of oxygen.
 
She was alive in that she was breathing and her heart was beating, but she was in a deep coma.
 
Ryan, a plumbing contractor in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, stayed by her side, reading the Bible to her and sometimes lying on the bed next to her. But as the days passed, her condition remained unchanged.
 
Doctors wouldn’t come right out and say that the situation was hopeless, but they did say that only one to two percent of such cases recovered to live normal lives.
 
During the ordeal, Ryan kept a diary. On June 6, 11 days after Jill stopped breathing, he wrote, “Today could be the worst day of my life. I essentially have to decide whether or not she will die or not.”
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20689992/
 
“She’s my soul mate and my wife, my everything in this whole world,” Ryan told Vieira, the words struggling against his emotions. “And it was up to me whether or not she lived or not. That’s a bad thing to go through.”
 
On June 9, at about 6 p.m., Ryan and Jill’s family said their goodbyes and doctors disconnected Jill from the machines that had been keeping her alive. She didn’t die immediately, and after a time, Ryan had to go to a judge to sign papers relating to the decision to disconnect Jill from life support.
 
He returned around 11 p.m. to sit with her and wait for the end in the hospice where she was being cared for.
 
“About 11:45, she started getting restless,” he said, an eventuality he had been prepared for. “People told me they call it the last rally. When a person is about to pass, they tend to regain some body function, be able to talk or move — things that they hadn’t been able to do previously.”
 
She also started mumbling. “I thought that was it, that was the last rally,” he said.
 
But it was soon clear she wasn’t just mumbling. She said, “Get me out of here.” Then she added another request: “Take me to Ted’s and take me to the Melting Pot,” naming two restaurants where she liked to indulge her passion for Mexican food.
 
“I asked her questions,” Ryan said. “Simple addition, what our phone number was, our dog’s name, our cat’s name.  She answered them all correctly, all of ’em. And I knew, ‘This isn’t the last rally.’”
 
Far from it. Jill had come out of her coma and was breathing on her own. She underwent surgery to implant a pacemaker for her heart condition and then went into a rehabilitation center.
 
“When I was in the coma, I don’t remember anything,” she told Vieira. “I don’t remember anything from the heart hospital. I do remember the big shower they wheeled me into every day. Other than that, I don’t remember anything.
 
“I did go to inpatient therapy, and I remember all of that. All of the nurses, and occupational therapists and speech pathologists — I remember all of them. They helped me tremendously.”
 
She has to work a little to pronounce difficult words, but otherwise seemed completely normal, Vieira observed.
 
“Pretty much, I am normal,” Jill replied. “I have a little speech that I’m working on. And my short-term memory is off. But other than that, I am doing great.”
 
And she’s cherishing every day with her husband, who was nominated for an Oklahoma Heart Hero award for his CPR work.
 
“We cherish each day, each minute, each hour now,” she said. “Not that we didn’t before, it just puts it more in perspective. We just spend every minute that we can together — going to the grocery store  now, we go together, go everywhere together. One of our friends, [said], ‘I’m so jealous. You guys are like newlyweds,’” she added, laughing.  [10Sept07, NBC Today Show.com, Don Teague, NBC News Video, by Mike Celizic]