Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Ah, C Parsons: I misinterpreted.

I read "Why do you think thirty-somethings seem more prone to suicide?" as "more prone than they used to be", rather than  "more prone than the young."

F Kendall: "Why do you think thirty- somethings are more prone to suicide, C Parsons?"

I think it is a statistical artefact arising out of the fact that youth suicide rates are so low. By contrast, any other age cohort's suicide rate looks higher, including thirty-somethings.

It is clear from the available data that the premise of this article, 'Is the modern world killing our kids', was false from the outset to the extent that all the evidence suggests the exact opposite to be the case.

C Parsons:  What explains the low, indeed declining suicide rates among Australia's young?

Er, having suggested that "life" was the cause of suicide, I can only suggest that "life" must be looking brighter for the young.

Did Sheik Feiz Mohammed ever have any positive results from his calls to youth suicide?  Can you put a number on this?  I'll be delighted to know that his respondents are falling.

And why do thirty somethings seem more prone to suicide?  Well, it could be that because they are rational, smart, experienced humans they have realised  that life is shit.  Or it could be because they are losers.  Or  because of the impossibility of ever obtaining a mortgage, combined with the fruitlesness of their achievements compared to the monumental payouts to corporate bosses.  Or because they were trained by their parents from the time they were puppies to pursue pursue pursue the empty goal of money, above all else.

Why do you think thirty- somethings are more prone to suicide, C Parsons?

Sorry Roslyn, I misread your sentence. You weren't downplaying the effects of drugs at all. I never was any good at reading things quickly.

Roslyn doubts that the increased tendency to ‘drug our children’ is one of the causes of suicide, but the evidence is increasingly against her on antidepressants. (Heres' an analysis from 2004. Much discussion has happened since and further meta-analyses, but I'm rather fond of one of the authors so I'm using that one.) Marketing, however,  has ensured that SSRI anti-depressants are often prescribed for adolescents despite regulatory authorities now warning against the use of most of them use in this age group.

BBC's Panorama this week revealed how Glaxo Smith Kline's own study showed better efficacy for placebo over paroxetine (Paxil/Seroxat) for depression in adolescents, but a 6 fold increase in suicidality, yet was spun as evidence that the drug "demonstrates remarkable efficacy and safety in treating the adolescent population".

F Kendall: "I don't think that one has to look for causes in such as caesarean birth, ultrasound, etc etc. Life seems to be quite enough cause for many."

So, what explains the low, indeed declining suicide rate amongst Australia's young, then? Even in spite of calls by people such as Sheik Feiz Mohammed, of Liverpool's Global Islamic Youth Centre, for increased youth sucides?

And why do thirty-somethings seem more prone to suicide instead, do you think?

I've just been re-reading "Middlemarch", and even there it makes the point that circumstance hit the young as disproportionately significant  and dramatic, because of... their youth, (and the associated lack of life experience).  The example George Elliot uses is of "the natives of Peru" who experience an earthquake, which might seem cataclysmic to the young, but which the old know will end, and can be endured.

Combine this with a tendency of many young to react impulsively, and it doesn't look good.

I don't think that one has to look for causes in such as caesarean birth, ultrasound, etc etc. Life seems to be quite enough cause for many.

However, there do seem to be a range of causes from despair and  hopelessness right through to competition and revenge.

Sheik Feiz Mohammed, of Liverpool's Global Islamic Youth Centre, was on Seven Network News this morning and, exactly as predicted, was claiming his transparent and overwhelming racist attack against Jews and his call for volunteer kiddy martyrs were "taken out of context", and "misinterpreted'.

I think I can see why this "context" and "interpretation" meme happens every single time one of these jerks get caught out. "Taken out of context" means actually "you were not supposed to hear that", doesn't it? "Misinterpreted" actually means "Had I known you could understand what I was saying I would have tried some more obscure dialect better suited to my target audience".

Notwithstanding the flurry of "concerned spokespersons" expressing their "disappointment" at Sheik 'n' Bacon Feiz Mohammed's carefully scripted and produced DVD, we should be mindful that he was employed by someone as a youth worker. A bloody "youth worker". 

Two seconds into his "the Jews are pigs" video, and becomes fairly clear that Feiz is a grunting, halfwitted thug:

"Jews are 'the leader of pride or arrogance'. 'They have got the most extreme racial pride in them,' he said. 'They say that every single non-Jew is a slave created to serve the Jews … Their time will come like every other evil person's time will come.'

Have a look at this creep, for heaven's sake. Just look at him. So, how did he get his own Youth Centre? Who approved and paid for that? Was there an interview? How did that go, I wonder? Imagine what the unsuccessful candidates must have been like.

You could argue that "in context", the Bacon Sheik's sermon is not as racist as John Howard's own "attack on Muslims" in which the PM provocatively sent a Christmas greeting to the head of the Catch the Fire Ministries. Or as racist as some Big Brother housemate putting on a fake Indian accent. But even by today's standards, telling children that "Jews are pigs" intent on "enslaving the world" is bordering on the wholly unacceptable.

Anyway, just so we are all clear which way this sort of thing is heading, here's an item that may be indicative:

A NEO-NAZI whose ideas were said to be the inspiration for the man who let off a nail bomb in Central London in 1999 has converted to an extremist form of Islam.

David Myatt, a founder of the hardline British National Socialist Movement (NSM) who has been jailed for racist attacks, has changed his name to Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt. David Copeland, who is serving six life sentences after three people died in his Soho bomb attacks, was a member of the NSM.

Let me guess. When he was a Nazi, anything unsavoury he may have said was "taken out of context", and "misinterpreted".

Roslyn Ross seems to have been speaking of the western world, in particular Australia, though, C Parsons, and as yet suicide bombings have taken a small toll here, notwithstanding the ghastly efforts of the ghastly Sheiks.

I am not sure what effect their sermonising has on the young...Their exhortations sound rather like the fulminations of the old fire and brimstone Catholic preachers - Redemptorists? and such - who kept an uninformed congregation obedient,  but  who seemed to contribute quite markedly to the drift/rush? from Catholicism in the last 50 years. As usual, the education of women seems crucial in this change.

Pity the those poor virgins. They always seem to get the worst of any deal. Fancy sharing a fella with 71 others.

Hahaha, David Curry - I like the story. So, if I want to be a star, I know what to do.

F Kendall: "Hmmm.  Will this rather distorted view of death influence their future actions?"

Well, perhaps not as much as believing that you'll go to heaven and have your choice of virgin playmates if you'd just blow yourself up along with that bus load of Jerusalem day-trippers over there.

"Today many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in the their hearts, the love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah.".

"We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom."

- Sheik Feiz Mohammed,  Global Islamic Youth Centre, Liverpool NSW.

Here's an excerpt Audio: Kill for Islam and win paradise.  A nice touch in the video of this sermon involves Sheik Feiz snorting like a pig when he mentions Jews.

Of course, this was all quoted 'out of context' because you weren't meant to be part of the audience. And a real nuisance about the sermon is that it's in English - so the 'mistranslation meme' is harder to enforce.

Jenny Hume:  Alex, aged 4, was curious about his deceased grandfather.  His mother tried various explanations, including the "he's in heaven" angle.

"No, no, no," Alex was adamant.  "He's not gone.  He's a part of you, now."

Impressed, mother passed it on to her husband, who said, "You do know that that's from The Lion King, don't you?"

I've read Bindi Irwin, several times making Alex's comment re her own father, and suspect, owing to the popularity of TLK, it may be a widespread view among the babes.     Hmmm.  Will this rather distorted view of death influence their future actions? 

Although I have previously said that I understood that suicide rates were high because of social conditions, eg. unemployment, in truth the young suicides I have known have been of beloved and apparently privileged children, sometimes very successful graduates into prestigious professions.

It is hard then not to see a will to "have the last word".

Other babes seem to have been confused by new age "nonsense” that they can die and still be "with" their family. An ABC doco a few years ago demonstrated this, I think.

And, of course, we all know that the young tend to be impulsive. Is this what gives the parents their greatest anguish?

Roslyn Ross: "Apart from the fact that the point of the article was to consider what possible factors might be at work in the troubling rate of youth suicide in Australia and the developed world, it seems some people are bogged down on statistics."

In your article, which you have titled 'Is the modern world killing our kids?', you have very specifically asked: "So what is different about our world today which makes our children turn toward death instead of life?"

And, while referring to "the troubling rate of youth suicide in Australia" you repeat statements such as "Australia’s young (15-24) male suicide rate is fourth highest among Western countries."

You raise a specific topic - call it 'troubling' - and make specific empirical claims in support of a general argument.  So, statistics are very important to your argument. Therefore, shouldn't you be delighted to learn, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics data drawn to your attention show quite clearly, that youth suicide is in fact not a particularly common problem at all?

Indeed, for young women in the very age cohort you mention - the 15-24 years age group - it is actually equal lowest of all along with for women 75 years and older. That Australia’s young male suicide rate is fourth highest among Western countries merely reflects the fact that in Western countries, you have to be very unlucky at all to die young. Among children aged 0-14 years, accidental drowning was a major external cause of death, accounting for 20% of all deaths from external causes in that age group.

Sounds scary when viewed out of context, doesn't it?  But that 20% represented just 303 deaths - for the whole five year period of the study. Out of millions of children. This is not to say that 303 little kids drowning doesn't represent an awful tragedy. Nor that we shouldn't strive to reduce the incidence of so terrible a thing. But the data answers your question: "Is the modern world killing our kids?"  The answer is clearly, and unambiguously: "No. It's not." This is not to say suicide is not a very serious issue. It is.

Suicide amongst 15-24 year-olds accounts for an annual average of about 30 deaths per 100,000 for males and 9 per 100,000 for females.

Over a five year study period, 40,370 people in Australia in total died from external causes with 12,312 intentional self-harm (suicide) deaths and 9,923 deaths from transport accidents.  So, external causes accounted for only 6% of all deaths in this period.  And young people accounted for only a proportion of these. And of these, suicide accounted for only a fraction of them.

So, no. Young people are not 'turning toward death'.

Apart from the fact that the point of the article was to consider what possible factors might be at work in the troubling rate of youth suicide in Australia and the developed world, it seems some people are bogged down on statistics. I don't happen to think statistics are what solve such problems but merely a pointer to the problem as I indicated in my article.

However, for those who are only concerned with such things here are some of the most recent reports:

2004 InPsych Bulletin report on youth suicide:

Australia’s young (15-24) male suicide rate is fourth highest among Western countries; the Australian rate of suicide is similar to that of the US and Canada, less than the New Zealand rate, and higher than the UK rate.

And:

“While suicide is an enormously complex issue,” Dr Carr Gregg says, “it’s only the tip of the iceberg; for every adolescent that kills him or herself there at least 200 who try and don’t succeed. I actually think that we’ve got a lot of work to do with young people’s mental health.

“I see adolescents with a growing number of problems due to the fact that a lot of the support mechanisms that used to be there are no longer. The psychological mooring posts, as Prof Gordon Parker (of the School of Psychiatry, The University of new South Wales) calls them, are gone and I think that this is arguably one of the most vulnerable generations we’ve ever had.”

ABC report 2003 Australia:

RACHEL MEALEY: With the rates of youth suicide increasing slowly over the past 30 years, health professionals are worried that young people aren't being heard when they signal their intention to harm themselves.

US report 2003: Suicide the third leading cause for deaths in youth aged 15-24.

Canada and US youth suicide report:

Excerpt: Teens and suicide are more closely linked than adults might expect. In a survey of 15,000 grade 7 to 12 students in British Columbia, 34% knew of someone who had attempted or died by suicide; 16% had seriously considered suicide; 14% had made a suicide plan; 7% had made an attempt and 2% had required medical attention due to an attempt.

Suicide rates among youths aged 15-24 have tripled in the past half-century, even as rates for adults and the elderly have declined. And for every youth suicide completion, there are nearly 400 suicide attempts.

I'm disappointed that Roslyn Ross has not yet been able to provide any evidence in support of her claims that youth suicide is a growing problem in Australia, or elsewhere in the "modern world". Concern about youth suicide in Australia puts me in mind of concerns about anorexia a bit. In each case, they are phenomena of almost disappearing statistical insignificance when compared with, say, the epidemiology of obesity.  Or of smoking cigarettes.

But anorexia and youth suicide both have terrific media potential. And propaganda value. Anorexia provides an empirical 'link' for more general feminist philosophical concerns about a range of issues including the portrayal of women in popular media, the position of women in the family, western civilisation, the patriarchy, psychoanalysis and so on.

And as a topic, it has more popular appeal than obesity. Particularly when talking to the mothers of young women. Any mum will be much more prepared to share her concerns about her teenaged daughter being anorexic than being a fat girl in danger of diabetes and a heart attack - the daughter can be portrayed as a wasting, sylphlike, gamine wilting under the hegemonic influences of popular culture, peer pressures and the patriarchy. Very romantic - unless you actually get anorexia of course. Though that's unlikely. Every mother wants to be a character in an Emily Bronte novel - nobody wants to be mother to Roseanne. This is not to belittle the real tragedy of anorexia in the lives of the comparatively few families it actually affects. Any more than we should belittle the fates of people struck by lightning or bitten by Black Mamba pythons while on safari in Kenya.

But it is revealing that the problem of obesity in young women - an actual problem - does not lend itself so regularly to current affairs editorials and picture spreads in women's magazines. 'Concern' about anorexia allows the 'worried well' to fulminate cathartically about the 'media' and 'peer pressure' bogies is ways that are immensely more emotionally and politically rewarding and self-justifying than worrying about the real problem of obesity. Except in those rare cases where the fault for obesity can be laid squarely at the feet of 'American' multinationals - such as MacDonald’s (actually majority Australian owned in this country) or Coca Cola. Then you can get really hysterical - as long as you are not personally connected with anyone who is fat.

You can rev people up just a bit over child obesity, as opposed to obesity amongst young women, though, because there's a slightly different underlying social anxiety at work there. But this tends to be limited to concerns about the availability of lollies and soft drinks in tuck shops, and people quickly lose interest. Unless you can again lay the blame squarely at the feet of 'American' multinationals and the media. 

But it's not as appealing as anorexia. Anorexia is linked in people's minds with nubile girls - and they have enormous box office appeal.

On a smaller scale, moral panics can be engineered about 'safe sex for teenagers' as these have appeal from an emotional, propaganda and editorial viewpoint. I was once asked to design campaign materials in support of an 'HIV/AIDS prevention campaign' in the Sutherland Shire - focussed on teenagers. Not a single HIV positive teenager had presented in the Shire in the five years prior to the 'prevention' campaign.  Not one.

No matter. There was immense interest by schools, community health advocates, women’s groups, youth workers and all sorts of other 'stakeholders' in the campaign. But it was recurring difficult to get these people to focus on what young males were doing.  Yet they worried themselves endlessly about the sexual past-times of young women. On and on and on and on. People found this fascinating for some reason. And the campaign organisers were quick to capitalise on it to the max.

Roslyn Ross: "Do you have evidence that this sort of spirituality is being taught?"

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data provided to you below, the highest age-specific suicide death rate for both males and females in 2003 was observed in the 30-34 years age group at:

·        30.1 per 100,000 for males and

·        9.1 per 100,000 for females.

And for females, the lowest rates of all occurred in

·        the 75 years and over age group and

·        the 15-24 years age group

This seems to contradict your argument that the modern world is "killing our kids" or driving them to suicide.

Do you have any evidence in support of your argument that youth suicide is a growing problem in Australia, or elsewhere in the "modern world"? Or that youth or child mortality is worse in the "modern" world than in the "developing" world? Or in previous eras in the modern world?

This is a matter no caring individual could possibly fail to be concerned about. Looking forward to your response.

Trevor: I would not have thought that children and adolescents were exposed to spirituality of any sort as a part of their education. At least, none of the children and adolescents I know has been.

Do you have evidence that this sort of spirituality is being taught? I realise it may well be touched upon in some private schools, perhaps Montessori or the Steiner schools, particularly the latter which is sourced in spirituality although I am not saying it is because I do not know enough about how they work.

I happen to think that many of the spiritual beliefs termed 'new age' can be very helpful if one is troubled or confused but as with religion one needs to be judicious about what is taught and how it is taught. Some schools do in fact teach things like meditation and I think that is a plus. Beats drugs any day.

But I would be very surprised if young people are exposed to the sorts of things you are talking about in general in the school system.

That's not to say that some of the factors cannot be found in the education system, or in parenting attitudes of today and social expectations. I would have thought all played a part to lesser or greater degrees.

I suppose I raised the physiological impacts because it seems to me that they are dramatic changes in society, whereas I do not think parenting attitudes or educational structures have changed as dramatically. There was a dramatic shift in the sixties in terms of child-raising and some interesting educational experiments like open classrooms in later years, but looking around now at nieces, nephews, friends and grandchildren I cannot see dramatic differences to how we brought our children up in the seventies and eighties. Apart from agonising over what to eat when pregnant, a recent move back to breastfeeding, and the return of the dummy as a pacifier, the general attitudes to child-raising seem to have been relatively consistent over the past thirty years. Give or take.

Parents seem to spend a lot of time running around playing taxi-driver for kids these days but then a lot of them did it in the seventies. We didn't, partly because we believed that time playing was often more important than attending yet another lesson and partly because we tried to make our kids as independent as possible.

But I do think that social attitudes have changed quite a bit and perhaps this is a factor given that young people confront it at an emotionally turbulent age. I think there is less respect for others, less courtesy, less kindness, less consideration and less emphasis on being polite and taking the feelings of others into account.

The world was always a harsh place but in some ways it has become harsher. There is enormous pressure on kids these days in their final year at school. There was too when my kids went through it but we refused to play this particular game and let them study at their own pace and in their own time, merely making the point that the better marks they got the more choice they would have in terms of career. But if they didn't get enough points to get into university then they would be expected to get a job, any job. They both passed with reasonable marks, both got into uni and completed courses with reasonable results and both moved into the workforce where they have been above average in terms of their success.

But, beyond individual experiences, I do think the workplace of today is a less considerate, more demanding, less kind in fact and supportive place than it once was. Perhaps this also has an impact on young people.

Good question from Roslyn: What is it about the Western world, the developed world, which contributes to this?

I know a one-word response is far too simplistic, but rejection is a significant contributor. So, we should look at the education system, specifically at early years and secondary. Here, it ought to be possible to enquire about beliefs, biases, mindsets and weird ideas that teachers may be inflicting on tender minds.

From an ABC radio broadcast, Beyond Enlightenment:

According to Ardagh, the number of people attaining spiritual realization has grown exponentially, and the human species is on the precipice of a "transparent revolution".

So, now I'm wondering if teacher training institutions bother to warn their students about translucitude, and its many cultic variants. Not wanting to mention anything specific, for fear of wandering bots and a take-down notice (pdf).

What happens to adolescents who are sucked in, but find their personal attributes are not required in the new age?

Trevor: Thanks for the link. I explored similar things in my WD piece The Road to Happiness in July last year.

Jenny: I was not applying my possible reasons to suicide rates in indigenous communities because I believe these situations have a variety of additional or other factors. My possibilities were particular in terms of relating to the young: not indigenous, not middle aged and not elderly...... all of which I believe need to be discussed in their own right because different factors would apply.

Neither am I saying, as I state in the piece, that these possibilities are givens. I merely raise them as changes in our world which may or may not be factors and am interested in the topic as a whole and any other possibilities, or social changes, which others might be able to point out.

Some people seem to get bogged down on statistics which is not the issue. It is accepted that youth suicide has been a growing problem in the Western world for some time now, despite rises and falls, and that is what interests and concerns me.

What is it about the Western world, the developed world, which contributes to this?

Quite an interesting article, "Happiness 101", (New York Times) here that may be relevant:

The Geelong Grammar School is planning to shape its curriculum around the precepts of positive psychology in 2008...

“As a school we would like to know how to make all students more resilient, how to turn depressing thoughts into positive ones   “

"The Australians have had a lot of depression in kids, that's half the reason they want it", said Ed Diener, the professor of psychology at the University of Illinois.

Jenny Hume: "Not a lot of mention is made here of the high rate of suicide in the indigenous population so it is probably not very useful talking in terms of age groups alone. But as 75% or so young people who die in the age range from 15-34 do die from causes other than suicide, it is not the major cause, but none the less at 25% is clearly too high."

But clearly, 'the Modern World' is not 'killing our kids' in the way Roslyn was trying to suggest.

The comparatively high death rates among Aboriginal youth are reflected in high death rates for every age cohort of Aborigines in Australia. Not just young Aboriginal people. They are dying precisely because they have been marginalised by 'modern society' and shut out from it. Not because they have been accepted by it.

The statement, in isolation, that the 25% of young males who die from suicide "is clearly too high" can mean many things. For those who loved them, it will always be far too high a rate no matter what the percentage of total deaths. But would it console anyone if the death rate from all other causes for this age cohort doubled - and so that the suicide rate was reduced to 12.5 percent?

That's one way to cut the suicide rate in half.

For argument's sake, let's assume that motor vehicle accidents account for 25 per cent of deaths amongst young men today. And that somehow or other tomorrow, suicides stop altogether. Motor vehicle deaths will have then gone instantly from being 25 per cent of deaths to 33.3 per cent.

Taken in isolation, that could make a very evocative rhetorical claim, couldn't it? But it would actually signal an improvement in the condition of young men generally, wouldn't it?

An article in the The Age, Fears for a drugged generation included:

But psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says SSRIs can be an essential adjunct to cognitive behaviour therapy. "There are kids on this planet today who I've treated who simply wouldn't be here if it wasn't for antidepressants," he says.

I scanned the Scientology website for claims about serious depression in young people, but didn't find anything.

Maybe I will contact Dave Touretzky, he may know more.

Roslyn Ross: "I don't think it is any one age group either. But I do think that the greater concern in regard to suicide in the young is both natural and vital."

Why is concern about suicide by 15-19 year olds (a comparatively rare phenomenon at 12.7 per 100,000 and actually declining) more "natural and vital" than suicide among 30-34 year olds (30.1 per 100,000) which is 237 per cent higher?!

And for females, the lowest rates of all occurred in:

a) the 75 years and over age group and

b) the 15-24 years age group!

Jenny Hume: "Irrespective of the rate per 100 000 it is clear that in terms of overall deaths amongst young males in the age ranges from 15-34, suicide takes a very heavy toll indeed, between 20-27% of all male deaths. "

Well, no disrespect, but no toll is "irrespective" of any rate, and is directly linked by definition.

The "toll" per capita is the "rate".

The reason suicide takes between 20-27% of all male deaths in that age range is because very little else will kill young men in that age range in the modern world.

And 15-24 year old girls are no more likely to commit suicide than a typical 75 year old women!

Is the greater concern because middle-aged men and old women lack sex appeal? Or don't make for as compelling propaganda? Or something?

2433 words - is this a record?  I thought it might be a serious attempt to address questions of alienation, hopelessness, lack of self-worth etc.  but, no, it's the rays.

What the statistics you quote Roslyn Ross, as usual, beg the question.  On the basis of your argument, what you have to explain is why all those brain-damaged teenagers don't commit suicide.

And, Jenny Hume, if you think back, youth suicide (particularly rural youth suicide) was, before 1996, something that professionals were prepared to discuss but politicians weren't until I forced the major parties to confront it is the Southern Highlands Election Campaign in 1996.  Hey presto, everyone wanted to develop a programme.

I agree both with Dr Reynolds about under-reporting and with C Parsons about the lack of comparable statistics.  What we really need to know is how we identify those at risk, how we assess whether the decision is a rational one and what we do about it in practical terms.  For example, I think a 15 year old is perfectly capable of making a rational decision that because of an incurable disease he does not want to put himself or his family through the additional agony of watching him waste away in excruciating pain or drugged to the eyeballs.

This article is another wasted opportunity.  Some real statistics with proper links to the literature might have been useful instead of the usual we have come to expect.

Richard: I don't think it is any one age group either. But I do think that the greater concern in regard to suicide in the young is both natural and vital. This is an age where we have all of our future ahead of us in a country where we have so much opportunity, compared to so many anyway. it is also an age when there is much physiological change and much psychological confusion which perhaps makes young people a little more predisposed to 'ending it all.' for this reason I think it is probably easier to help the young than those who are older.

I think there are people who are predisposed to commit suicide and in reality there is nothing you can do to stop them and I think there are people who reach this point because of their current circumstances and they can be helped. I think this applies more to the young than to other groups.

What I am curious about is the increase in youth suicide in the developed world in the past decade or so. I know some people raise the issue of under-reporting but I really don't feel this is the core issue although there may be some influence in this regard.

I would have thought that social pressures which contribute to 'under-reporting' may well have been a factor in say the forties, fifties and possibly the sixties but not in the seventies and beyond simply because so much changed in society in Australia from the sixties. The old taboos were discarded and I do not see why that would not apply to youth suicide in particular or suicide in general.

In addition, the dramatic increases were recorded throughout the nineties and by that time society had well and truly become more open and accepting of things which in previous times had been considered subjects of shame.

My mother spent much of the fifties and some of the early sixties in and out of mental hospitals and I well remember the terrible shame she felt because of her illness. By the sixties that sense of shame had begun to diminish. It was okay to admit to mental illness and to talk about it.

Luckily my mother never wanted to kill herself although there were times when I am sure she wished she were dead. She said she wouldn't do it because she might miss something but I suspect her children also held her to this world in a way that sometimes they cannot.

The other thing I learned from her was that no matter how you feel this is not the way the world is ..... which is what many people come to believe ..... but just the way you feel and while the world may not change the way you feel will change. And it does, in time. I suspect one reason why people kill themselves is because they cannot envisage ever feeling any different. I can relate to that and know those dark places but I never wanted to kill myself because I knew in time it would pass and it did. so much so that since my thirties it has not been an issue anyway. I do however understand why people kill themselves and the desperation and hopelessness they feel in order to do so.

The thing about youth suicide is that to some degree a sense of desperation and hopelessness seems to be part and parcel of the teenage and young adult years for many people, if not most. They are therefore, I feel, more vulnerable at this age than perhaps any other. or rather, more of them are vulnerable at this age than at any other.

I know that physical pain can be terrible but I feel that psychological pain is far, far worse. We do have greater acceptance and more understanding but I don't think we yet completely accept or understand such suffering unless we have experienced it ourselves.

I also think it is important to understand the impact of physical conditions and circumstances upon the body and mind of highly sensitive individuals. Like many things in life I suspect there is not one single answer to the Why of youth suicide or any suicide.

Roslyn Ross: "C. Parsons: The topic is not child morbidity but youth suicide, and youth suicide in the developed world in general and Australia in particular."

The lowest age-specific suicide death rate for males in 2003 was observed in the 15-19 years age group (12.7 per 100,000).

For females low rates occurred in the 75 years and over age group and in the 15-24 years age group.

- Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Twenty-odd years ago I went to visit a school colleague.  She was worried about her boyfriend, whom she lived with.  Said he'd been acting weird lately, out of character in a lot of ways.  

 Halfway through the convversation she began to think that he'd  decided to kill himself and headed for the railway track a block down the street.

A few hundred metres down the track, underneath the overpass, was a group of police.

I sent her home and went to identify him. Nineteeen years old, and he'd jumped in front of a train's path. I've never been able to blot it out.

When I can work out why that death needed to happen, Roslyn, I'll think about the continuance.  But if you want to know my opinion I'll give it to you, and I don't think it's only applicable to one age group :

People who think they no longer feel they belong in a society are extremely susceptible to suicidal tendencies.   The sad fact is that people at this level of despair don't get help until they fail an attempt. 

This isn't much use for the too many who succeed.
 

Fiona:   I was not seeking to undertake an exploration of the various levels of youth suicide but rather to discuss the fact that, falls aside, those levels are high in the developed world and unacceptably high.

As a follow-on from that my main focus was on the Why as I said and a potential discussion of what is different in the world today.

I also made the point that the possible causes I raised are not necessarily the cause or causes but I find them factors of difference in our modern world which are worth exploring.

I could also have gone on to discuss the psychological and emotional factors in youth suicide but this would, by necessity, have made the article much longer and so I kept to the physiological and possible psychological impacts.

I happen to think that a lack of meaning, or loss of meaning in the modern world with the loss of a spiritual (or religious) aspect to life is a factor, or is likely to be a factor. But this is a huge topic and worth a separate article I feel. I think there are also sociological factors at work such as a general lack of respect in society; a greed is good mentality.; a view that people are no more than commodities, etc, and so on and so forth..... a very big topic and certainly one worth discussing but I chose not to do so here.

I did not touch upon under-reporting nor an analysis of statistics because that was not the focus of my article. My focus was possible Why's with a physiological and psychological impact.

Whether over reported or under reported the reality is that in the developed world it is a recognised fact that youth suicide levels have risen to previously unknown heights. I merely seek to discuss why that might be.

The WHO has a comprehensive site discussing electromagnetic fields. The general view is that there is no hard evidence as to health impacts but uncertainty remains.

As with all things it behoves us to research an issue and apply common sense and make up our own minds as to whether or not we agree with the generally accepted scientific view.

There's an excellent book, Alternative Science, by Richard Milton which discusses in detail the propensity of the scientific establishment to ignore or dismiss theories or even research which do not fit with the accepted paradigms.

Cold fusion, telephathy, bioenergy are banished from the research field by the scientific establishment, says Milton, and scientists lose their jobs, funding and respect for merely conducting research in these fields.

But then the scientific establishment ignored the Wright brothers because it said flight was not possible; rejected the turbine; laughed at Edison's incandescent lamp; ridiculed Baird's 'television' and in 1957 Britain's Astronomer Royal, Sir Harold Spencer rejected out of hand any possibility of future space travel.

All of which simply goes to show, along with a lot more, that not only do the scientists not know everything they frequently dismiss realities.

An engineer and a journalist, what a mix, Milton has been writing on science and technology for twentyfive years.

Roslyn, you ask: "What is different about our world today which (sic) makes our children turn towards death instead of life?"

You then say, "Quite a lot actually," and list ultrasounds, caesarians, exposure to electricity,...(drugs), ...the use of mobile phones, and IVF.

Can you really contend that these cause suicide?

Heavens, and I had always thought that it was despair, hopelessness, unhappiness, unemployment, etc.

Now, can you tell me why so many older men commit suicide?

The point of the article was the unacceptably high rate of youth suicide. I begin by using the terms of rising and falling and while we should be pleased that the inexorable rise up until the past couple of years appears halted, for the moment anyway, the 2005 Mission Australia study shows that there is still cause for great concern.

Seeking to understand why youth suicide has become so prevalent in developed nations like Australia is vital, I believe, if one is to do anything about it.

C. Parsons: The topic is not child morbidity but youth suicide, and youth suicide in the developed world in general and Australia in particular. All of the other areas which you specify are important but the most important thing is that overall the developed world has seen a dramatic rise in youth suicide over the past decade or more.

As to my linking to Avant, a satirical news site, this is perhaps a lesson to me to be more thorough but the original story and link came from one of the UK newspapers which ran a story last year. A foolish assumption on my part, and as a journalist I should know better, that the information in that article had been verified.

On the other hand, the Avant site, while being satirical, still trawls the world for stories to publish which it considers unlikely or as suitable for disbelieving but this does not by necessity make the information wrong. There is a great deal of information available as to the impact that electricity has on the body. Hardly surprising really given that the body is at cellular level an 'electrical generator.' Every cell in our body is constantly 'exchanging' levels of sodium and potassium and in the doing 'creating' small electrical charges. It is hardly surprising therefore that our bodies are affected by other electrical fields.

My goal, as stated, was not to prove that one or some or all of the possible contributing factors is responsible for high youth suicide rates, still far too high even if falling, but to stimulate debate.

Thank you Jenny Hume and C Parsons for some worthwhile comments and questions about a distressing subject.

As for Roslyn Ross? Well I guess she is entitled to some credit for raising the subject.

We will never get anywhere if we allow ourselves to be distracted by the voices of ratbags, cranks and worse. This is as true about a subject like youth suicide as it is about, say, Israel/Palestine or Iraq.

Would you like some further explanation of what I am getting out? OK. Consider this observation from the lead article above:

"A two-part study of the effects of electricity on the human body has concluded that short- or long-term exposure to the phenomena may be responsible for the untimely demise of millions of brain cells.

""It was quite a jolt," said Dr. Abe C. Diesey, who supervised the study. "We went into the study expecting to find no harmful effects at all, particularly considering the acceptance and ubiquity of electricity in all industrialized societies. Instead we found the exact opposite. The results were, in a word, electrifying."

""We found a direct, linear correlation between electricity exposure and brain cell deactivation and decay, even at comparatively low exposure levels," said Dr. Diesey. "The more time our test subjects spent near electrical devices and the closer they were to them, the greater the rate of brain cell attrition."

"How many children now sleep in rooms alongside computers, television sets, clocks and even cordless telephones or mobiles, exposed to higher levels of electricity, even when equipment has been turned off, than ever before? And how many of those same children will then spend a large part of their day sitting in front of a computer or television set or perhaps even talking on the phone?"

Allow me to repeat one line of that.

 "It was quite a jolt," said Dr. Abe C. Diesey, who supervised the study."

I bet it was. Here are some other findings from the same research institute.

•  I could have had celebrity sex -- but I stuck to my principles
• "One of the most chilling experiments we tried consisted of connecting a test subject to a brain cell attrition scanner in which live results were displayed on a computer monitor," Dr. Diesey said. "The subjects could watch their own rate of brain cell decay in real time, a decay caused during the test primarily by the ambient electrical output of the computer system and the monitor they were at that moment watching. Most subjects were mesmerized. One stared at the screen for seventeen hours straight with only one short bathroom break, at an approximate cost of 420 million brain cells."
• "It's really very simple," Dr. Diesey said. "Watching TV or sitting in front of a computer screen or a game console will, over time, turn you into an idiot. We have the proof. Unfortunately, our study also proves that, for most people, that's a price they're more than willing to pay."

• Greenpeace, the activist group known for its risky, but non-combative, worldwide efforts to protect the environment, declared today it has officially renounced non-violent tactics. The act is seen as a reaction to an increasingly hostile activist environment that has frequently pitted Greenpeace in one-sided violent confrontation against both anti-environmentalist corporate interests and the often corrupt governments that support them.

• "We've been broadsided, beaten, Maced, bombed, sunk, sued and spat on for years, and that's just by the politicians," Redwing Beetleboi, a senior Greenpeace spokesman, said. "And so far, we've always turned the other cheek, as the saying goes. Well, !@#$ that. From now on, the gloves are off."

Sad really. When you get to the stage where you cannot distinguish between satirical sites and the pompous dishonest propaganda they satirise surely it is time you gave the game away.

Jenny Hume: "The death of a young person through self-harm is a terrible thing for any family to have to cope with."

Indeed.

Here are some recent figures about youth suicides from the Australian Bureau of Statistics;

The age-standardised suicide rate (for persons) in 2003 was 6% lower than the corresponding rate for the previous year and 24% lower than the peak for the period 1993-2003, which occurred in 1997.

For males, in many age groups, there was a decline in age-specific suicide rates following peaks in the years 1997 and 1998. The age-standardised suicide rate for total males (17.7 per 100,000) in 2003 was lower than in any year in the previous decade (1993-2002).

Similarly for females, there were declines in rates for some age groups over this period and the age-standardised suicide rate for total females (4.7 per 100,000) in 2003 was the lowest since 1994.

The highest age-specific suicide death rate for both males and females in 2003 was observed in the 30-34 years age group (30.1 per 100,000 for males and 9.1 per 100,000 for females).

So what is different about our world today which makes our 'thirty-somethings' turn toward death instead of life?

Roslyn Ross: "So what is different about our world today which makes our children turn toward death instead of life?"

Roslyn, what data are there available comparing:

• infant and child mortality rates today with infant and child mortality rates in previous times? Say, comparing today with the 1940s? Or with a century ago?
• infant and child mortality rates in the developed world with the developing/third world?
• child morbidity rates today with previous eras?
• child morbidity rates today in the developed world with the developing/third world?
• youth suicide rates today with previous eras?
• youth suicide rates by country?
• youth suicide rates by social class?
• youth suicide rates by gender?

Which of these, if any, would suggest that "our children turn toward death instead of life" as compared with previous eras? I'd be really interested to know.

Roslyn Ross: My resolve to limit myself on WD is instantaneously undermined by this subject, and I had contemplated at one stage writing a piece on it, but chose not to. Nor do I now want to get into any lengthy discussion of it.

However, I make the following observations as it is a subject on which I have read widely in recent years. What you do not point out in your piece is that youth suicide rates have in fact been falling since 1997 when they peaked alarmingly. It was as a result of this rapid upward trend in the five years to 1997 that the Government introduced programs to try and address the issue, so it would seem that some progress has been made, if falling numbers are anything to go by.

I think the television ads were particularly important that alerted schoolchildren to the possibility that their friends might be suffering and to not just ignore it. Kids tend to see signs or hear things that adults do not. I no longer see those ads, and if this is cost cutting then that is a great shame.

I do not know that kids face any greater pressures these days than we did fifty years ago, but yes, the tendency to hit them with drugs at any sign of behavioural problems is to me appalling. And yes, we do not know the full implications of certain technological advances on health, and I think the cocktails of chemicals we take in through food processing these days do pose some serious questions about the effects on the developing human brain. And if illegal drugs like marijuana and ice can be shown to affect the developing brain, then why not other mind-impacting prescribed drugs?

And I could not agree more about medicating grief. You cannot medicate grief away. When the pill wears off the emotional pain is still there. Drugs only put off the day when one has to come to terms with it. Children are able to handle grief, sometimes a darned sight better than adults. To assume that they cannot simply because they appear a bit "down" and give them antidepressants is to me irresponsible. That is not to say they don't have a place but there is far too much reaching for the pills, in my view, when counselling and support are what is required.

My reading on the issue of youth suicide over recent years told me that:

1. Children in Australia of indigenous background are highly represented in the youth suicide statistics.

2. Gifted children are quite often overly represented.

3. Young people with a mental illness are particularly at risk and I have had it stated to me by numerous psychologists and psychiatrists that 30% of those with mental illness recover full health, 30% get worse, 30% live in a twilight zone, neither seriously ill, but nonetheless very unwell, and the other 10% end up dead, and frequently as a result of suicide.

4. Children from dysfunctional or abusive homes are at heightened risk.

5. Youth suicide is twice as high in rural areas as urban areas.

6. Youth suicide in Vietnam veterans is four times the national average.

7. ADHD children are at greater risk as they often lack fear. They can be very high risk takers for that reason and I have seen that for myself.

So clearly many factors, not just exposure to drugs, electricity or whatever, can and do play a role. What is more concerning is that for every young person who does suicide there are almost three times that many who actually try. Also there is the matter of misadventure. When a child ends up dead from self-inflicted causes, it is of little comfort for the family to know that they may not have intended to die. I know that surveys have been conducted in the past amongst young people engaged in self-harm acts, but who survived, only to admit they did not intend to die, but rather wanted to draw attention to issues that were of concern to them. This shows that education programs and counselling could save many young lives.

Bald statistics really do not in themselves bring us any closer to understanding why young people take their lives. Only an analysis of all the facts surrounding each case of both completed and attempted suicide can provide us with the information we need to be able to draw any meaningful conclusions. But I agree: the growing use of drugs, both legal and prescribed is very alarming.

The death of a young person through self-harm is a terrible thing for any family to have to cope with. It has a ripple effect like no other on the surviving and extended family, the damage to family relationships of the victim all too often becoming permanent. So the fallout of youth suicide can be very far reaching.

So it is quite heartening that rates overall have fallen since 1997. And that is all I want to say on this subject. There are many links one can go to read the most recent studies.