120 veterans commit suicide every week
As most in the national media continue to sink to new lows, CBS is out with an investigation about veteran suicides. Unbelievable. Be sure to watch the video:
CBS News went to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where Dr. Ira Katz is head of mental health.
"There is no epidemic in suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem," he said.
Why hasn't the VA done a national study seeking national data on how many veterans have committed suicide in this country?
"That research is ongoing,” he said.
So CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.
And what it revealed was stunning.
In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.
posted by storiesinamerica @ 7:47 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
So CBS News is saying veterans are committing suicide at much higher rates than the general population.
That may be true, but veterans are unlike the general population in that they're 88% male.
Guess which sex commits suicide much more frequently?
If you follow this link...
http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/Death_Rates.pdf
...you will see US casualties from 1980 - 2006.
Self inflicted deaths for the 80's: 2482
Self inflicted deaths for the 90's: 2099
Self inflicted deaths for 2000-06: 1125
If the numbers hold up, there will be less than 1700 suicides for the
period of 2000-2009.
The suicide rate is going down historically from decade to
decade.
But for some reason those numbers haven't got much coverage in the mainstream media. Go figure.
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