Monday, March 29, 2010

Another Suicide After Bullying

These charges have to be unconstitutional. The act was a suicide. The charge is bullying, a vague, meaningless word. Now, anyone who offended the suicider may face criminal charges, e.g a boyfriend breaking up, a teacher correcting an assignment, a parent yelling at the victim.

In Japan, bullying causes much teen suicide. It takes another form than here, but is very devastating to the target. It consists of shunning. That is apparently unbearable to Japaneses kids. Under this Mass crew, not saying hello to a kid may become actionable and may result in prison time.

The suicide is a voluntary, intentional act. Without it, the bullying would have resulted in school discipline, not criminal charges. The defendants are being charged because of the act of another. Even if one had told the suicider, kill yourself, it would change nothing.One is being scapegoated for the act of another, in violation of the right to a fair hearing.

On the civil side, does the school have a duty to maintain a harassment free zone for all students? The school has a duty to provide an education, not physical security services. The concept of a hostile environment is a feminist tool to intimidate males, so that they cannot even look at a female without getting fired, sort of Chinese Virgin Empress style. Any parent or lawyer bringing such claims should be driven out of town, because they are just pretextually trying to plunder the school and the taxpayer.

The proper remedy for the victim of harassment, bullying? A smart slap to the face of the offending pig. If you want a legal remedy, get a protection order against the harassers. Sue the harassers for assault or discrimination, but not the school.

Most catastrophes are multi-factorial. This suicide likely had many causes. Bullying was likely a weak one among many.

The family is likely the biggest factor in suicide. They likely had the best knowledge about her condition. They had the best opportunity to get her treated. They had the most power to supervise her. They had the most power to inflict despair on her by their expressions of negative emotions against her. They may have had the knowledge of the genetic predisposition to suicide. We do not know if she was an abuse victim.

The immature utterances of a bunch of knuckleheads pales in suicide power compared to those factors. If the prosecutor failed to have these factors evaluated, including any finding of intoxicating substances in the body, the feminist lawyer must resign her position. This is a pretextual opportunity to advance the feminist orthodoxy that males are the cause of all female problems, however compelling factors closer to home might be.

"A Massachusetts prosecutor says nine teens have been charged in the "unrelenting" bullying of a teenage girl who killed herself, and two of them have been charged with statutory rape.

Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel (SHY'-buhl) says 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley suffered months of nearly constant stalking and harassment in person and online. She killed herself Jan. 14.

Scheibel says school officials knew about the bullying, but none will face criminal charges."

And more.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Smoking Is an Independent Risk Factor for Suicide

The feature common to smoking and to suicide is impulsivity, naturally. If that is not true, and smoking is truly an independent risk factor, one wonders if treatments for smoking, such as varenicline, reduce the suicide rate. This would contradict the extremist scapegoating of this medication.

From Medscape Medical News

Smoking May Be an Independent Risk Factor for Suicidality

Crina Frincu-Mallos, PhD









March 11, 2010 (Baltimore, Maryland) — Smoking may be an independent risk factor for suicidality, new research suggests.

A longitudinal study presented here at the Anxiety Disorders Association of America 30th Annual Conference shows a strong association between smoking and suicidality in a cohort of 3021 adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 24 years at baseline.

The Early Developmental Stages of Psychopathology study, a prospective, longitudinal study, showed that prior occasional, regular smoking and nicotine dependence were associated with an increased risk for the onset of suicidal ideation, with odds ratios (ORs) ranging from 1.5 to 2.7.

Prior regular smoking and nicotine dependence were also associated with the subsequent first onset of suicide attempts (ORs, 3.1-4.5). According to the investigators led by Roselind Lieb, PhD, preexisting suicidality was not associated with subsequent smoking or nicotine dependence.

"Smoking increases the risk for subsequent suicidality. We have found it is a risk factor independent of other psychopathologies or other drug use,” Dr. Lieb, professor of epidemiology and health psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland, told Medscape Psychiatry.

The study appears to confirm results from a previous 10-year, longitudinal study published in 2005 that showed that current daily smoking, but not past smoking, predicted the subsequent occurrence of suicidal thoughts or attempts independent of major depression, prior substance use, and suicidal predisposition (Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2005;62:328-334).

Dose-Response Relationship

To further investigate the potential link between smoking and suicidality, Dr. Lieb and colleagues used baseline (T0), 1-year (T1), 4-year (T2), and 10-year (T3) follow-up data. Regular smoking, nicotine dependence, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts were assessed using the standardized Munich-Composite International Diagnostic Interview.

Analyses were based on logistic regression controlling for age and sex and additionally for alcohol and illicit substance use disorders, as well as major depression.

Longitudinal data from 2210 subjects were available for this study. Of these subjects, 33% (at T0), 44.7% (at T2), and 50.5% (at T3) were regular smokers. The trend was similar for nicotine-dependent subjects: 16.9% (at T0), 23.5% (at T2), and 28.3% (at T3).

In terms of suicidality, 10.1% (at T0), 13.8% (at T2), and 17.4% (at T3) reported cumulative suicidal ideations, and 1.8% (at T0), 4.8% (at T2), and 5.5% (at T3) reported suicide attempts.

The analyses of the 10-year follow-up data indicate that there is a dose-response relationship between the duration of smoking and suicidality.

For example, 7% of respondents with a former nicotine dependence (before T2 and during follow-up) attempted suicide, compared with 3.4% of respondents who were never dependent (OR, 2.12; P < .05). This rate increased from 10.1% for respondents who developed a new dependence during follow-up (between T2 and T3) to 16.8% for those who were former dependent smokers and remained so during follow-up.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Inpatient Suicide

Abstract

Suicides that occur while a patient is hospitalized are tragic events causing immense distress to relatives, peers, and professional caregivers. The prevalence of this infrequent occurrence is between 0.1% and 0.4% of all psychiatric admissions. This article reviews the literature to see if such events can be predicted and prevented; attempts to identify high-risk patients through demographics, diagnoses, medication treatments, and patient social situations; and examines the care-delivery environment such as length of stay and physical surroundings. This article also examines the means patients used to end their lives and when in their hospital course they did so. The authors ask if standard predictors are applicable to hospitalized patients, speculate on potential preventive measures, examine the effect on care providers, and explore what might ease the aftermath. Affective disorders or schizophrenia are most frequently associated with inpatient suicide. Most occur while patients are off the psychiatric unit. Suicides on-ward are usually accomplished by hanging; off-ward suicides are also often violent. Most patients denied suicidal ideation prior to the act. Factors associated with suicide in the general population are not consistently associated with inpatient suicides. Patient monitoring is not always effective. The first week of hospitalization and the days immediately after discharge are when patients are most vulnerable to end their lives. The authors conclude that the potential for suicide may be present from the initiation of hospitalization, but the ability to determine individuals at risk is, at best, poor.