Posts

Washington Assisted Suicide Law Leads to Over 100 Deaths in 2013

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.comA government report shows that 173 people asked for, and received, medication doses high enough to induce death in 2013. It estimated that 119 people died as a result of those medications, though 159 total patients died.

In 2008, voters in Washington supported the patient-assisted suicide law, which went into effect in 2009. The law allows terminally ill patients who are expected to die six months or sooner after the diagnosis to be prescribed medication to end their lives. Two witnesses, including a non-relative, must be present when the medication is used.

According to Margaret Dore of Choice is an Illusion, a group opposed to “death with dignity” laws, “the new report is important for what it doesn’t say.”

“When Washington’s law was passed, it was sold as a completely voluntary act in which ‘only’ the patient would be allowed to take the lethal dose,” Dore told LifeSiteNews. “The act doesn’t actually say that, but that’s how it was sold.”

The government’s report reveals that in only two percent of cases was the prescribing physician present as the patient took the deadly drugs. Dore says because of this there’s a grave risk of abuse by family members.

Read more from this story HERE.

High Doses of Antidepressants Appear to Increase Risk of Self-Harm in Young Adults

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass / Creative Commons

Children and young adults who start antidepressant therapy at high doses, rather than the “modal” [average or typical] prescribed doses, appear to be at greater risk for suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment.

A previous meta-analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of antidepressant trials suggested that children who received antidepressants had twice the rate of suicidal ideation and behavior than children who were given a placebo. The authors of the current study sought to examine suicidal behavior and antidepressant dose, and whether risk depended on a patient’s age.

The study used data from 162,625 people (between the ages of 10 to 64 years) with depression who started antidepressant treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor at modal (the most prescribed doses on average) or at higher than modal doses from 1998 through 2010.

The rate of suicidal behavior (deliberate self-harm or DSH) among children and adults (24 years or younger) who started antidepressant therapy at high doses was about twice as high compared with a matched group of patients who received generally prescribed doses. The authors suggest this corresponds to about one additional event of DSH for every 150 patients treated with high-dose therapy. For adults 25 to 64 years old, the difference in risk for suicidal behavior was null. The study does not address why higher doses might lead to higher suicide risk.

Read more from this story HERE.

CIA Official Dies in Apparent Suicide

/12 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

A senior CIA official has died in an apparent suicide this week from injuries sustained after jumping off a building in northern Virginia, according to sources close to the CIA.

CIA spokesman Christopher White confirmed the death and said the incident did not take place at CIA headquarters in McLean, Va.

“We can confirm that there was an individual fatally injured at a facility where agency work is done,” White told the Washington Free Beacon. “He was rushed to a local area hospital where he subsequently died. Due to privacy reasons and out of respect for the family, we are not releasing additional information at this time.”

A source close to the agency said the man who died was a middle manager and the incident occurred after the man jumped from the fifth floor a building in Fairfax County.

Many agency employees are known to work under stressful conditions and high stress is considered a part of the profession, for the three general types of employees: Intelligence analysts and support personnel, technical services operators, and members of the clandestine services, the agency’s elite spying branch.

Read more from this story HERE.

Financial World Rattled by String of Suicides

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Shutterstock; Linkedin; Zumapress.comThe financial world has been rattled by a rash of apparent suicides, with some of the best and brightest among the finance workers who have taken their lives since the start of the year.

A majority of the eight suicides of 2014 have been very public demonstrations, which has suicide-prevention experts puzzled.

“Jumping is much less common as a method for suicide in general, so I am struck by the number that have occurred in recent months in this industry,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Moutier also discounts the location of the act as being the driver behind the reason for the suicide.

“The suicide-research literature doesn’t help very much with the question of why the method of these suicides is so out in the open,” she added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Hill Staffer Dead in Apparent Suicide

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP Photo/WJLA TV

Photo Credit: AP Photo/WJLA TV

Ryan Loskarn, the former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander who was charged with possessing and distibuting child pornography last month, was found dead in his home in Maryland of an apparent suicide, law enforcement officials said Friday.

“At approximately 12 p.m. yesterday, Carroll County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a private residence in the 6900 block of Kenmar Lane for a report of an unconscious male, believed to be deceased,” the sheriff’s office reported Friday morning. “Family members reported finding 35-year old Jesse Ryan Loskarn unresponsive in his basement where he’d been residing with family since this past December.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that Loskarn may have taken his own life, and his body has since been transported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office for Autopsy.”

The Maryland state Medical Examiner said later Friday that Loskarn’s death by hanging, initially reported by Politico, had been ruled a suicide.

Loskarn’s parents, Chuck and Gay Loskarn, issued the following statement Friday: “We loved our son very much, and we’re devastated by his death. Please respect our privacy at this difficult time and let us grieve in peace. Pray for him, his family and friends.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Up to 21, Mostly Foreigners, Killed in Kabul Suicide Attack

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS/OMAR SOBHANI

Photo Credit: REUTERS/OMAR SOBHANI

Up to 21 people were killed in Friday’s attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in the Afghan capital, after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance and gunmen burst in to spray diners with bullets.

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) representative in Afghanistan and four United Nations staff were among the dead, who included 13 foreign nationals, police said.

Islamist Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack on a Lebanese restaurant in the capital’s central Wazir Akbar Khan district, which hosts many embassies and restaurants catering for expatriates.

“Such targeted attacks against civilians are completely unacceptable and are in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said. “They must stop immediately.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Data Shows More Young Veterans Committing Suicide

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Photo Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Suicides among young veterans climbed sharply in a recent three-year period, according to a new government analysis focused on Veterans Health Administration clients.

The number of suicides among 18-to-29-year-old men increased from 88 in 2009 to 152 in 2011. That translates into a 44% rise in the suicide rate, which jumped to 57.9 suicides per 100,000 veterans.

Experts were at a loss to explain the increase. It occurred as the Department of Veterans Affairs was bolstering its suicide prevention efforts in response to a sharp rise in military suicides during a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One possibility is that those efforts have been successful in drawing more suicidal young veterans to the VA for care, but that many still wind up killing themselves.

“If you have more people at risk, the rates are going to change,” said Dr. Timothy Lineberry, a suicide expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not involved in the analysis.

Read more from this story HERE.

Wall Street Tycoon Robert Wilson Gives Away $800 Million Fortune Before Jumping to his Death

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A renowned Wall Street tycoon gave away his entire $800 million fortune before falling to his death in a suicide jump this week. Hedge fund multi-millionaire Robert W. Wilson, 87, leapt from the 16th floor of his luxury San Remo apartment building, a prestigious address in New York’s Upper East Side which has been the residence of Steven Spielberg, Demi Moore, Glenn Close, Dustin Hoffman, Bono, Steve Martin, Bruce Willis and Steve Jobs in the past.

According to the New York Police Department, he left a note at the scene. He had suffered from a stroke just a few months before.

“He always said he didn’t want to suffer and when the time came, he would be ready,” close friend Stephen Viscusi told the New York Post.

“His plan was to give all his money away. He told me recently, ‘I only have about $100 million to go.'”

He has since been praised as a “legend” by his peers, after pledging his entire worth to charity some years before he ended his life.

Read more from this story HERE.

Schlafly: Amnesty Is Republican Party Suicide

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Townhall Most Americans believe that the United States of America is an exceptional country. The “borders test” proves that people are coming to America, not fleeing from America to exit to other countries.

Republicans and conservatives recognize that the principal reason for our unique abundance is our constitutional restraints on the power of government, separation of powers, balanced budgets, and a minimum of government supervision and interference in our daily lives. America offers a remarkable opportunity for foreigners; no matter what socioeconomic rank they were assigned in their native country.

Most of the millions of immigrants we have welcomed came from countries where the only government they knew was one that made all decisions about economic and social policy. The current level of legal immigration to America adds thousands of people every day whose views and experience are contrary to the conservative value of limited government.

The influx of these new voters will reduce or eliminate Republicans’ ability to offer an alternative to big government, increased government spending, and favorite liberal policies such as Obamacare and gun control. New voters will lean on our hard-pressed health care system and overcrowded public schools to demand more government services.

Amnesty advocates point to the assimilation of large numbers of immigrants in the early years of the 20th century. But that was followed by a national pause and slowdown of immigration from the 1920s to the 1960s, which allowed newcomers to assimilate, learn our language, and adapt to our system of government.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shock: High School Teacher Sentenced to Just 30 Days for Rape of Student who Later Committed Suicide

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Paul Ruhter

Photo Credit: Paul Ruhter

A former high school teacher in Montana will only serve 30 days in jail, despite being convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl who later committed suicide.

The sentence was handed down on Monday by Judge G. Todd Baugh to Stacey Dean Rambold, 54, who admitted to having sexual relations with Cherice Morales, a then 14-year-old student.

Baugh reportedly sentenced Rambold to 15 years prison for nonconsensual sexual intercourse, but suspended all except 31 days. The judge then gave the former teacher credit for one day served, reducing his total jail sentence to just 30 days.

Read more from this story HERE.