U.N.: World's top killer is suicide

[Angel]

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Suicide kills more people each year than war and homicide combined, the United Nations says.

However, suicide prevention programs have proven remarkably successful, Jose Manoel Bertolote, of the U.N. World Health Organization, and Brian Mishara, of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, told reporters Friday in New York.

Telephone hotlines, reduced access to lethal substances and reduced physical access to infamous suicide locations, such as the Golden Gate Bridge in California, have proven effective at preventing suicide and encouraging those suffering from mental illness to seek help.

Making suicide a crime, as Singapore and India have done, is effective only in keeping those who need mental health treatment from being helped.

The low cost of alcohol, such as the low cost of vodka in Russia, also tends to increase suicide trends.

"To be effective suicide prevention needs to incorporate a multi-faceted and intersectoral approach, which acknowledges the multiple causes and pathways to suicide behavior," the International Association for Suicide Prevention said.

Still, the problem has decidedly not been brought under control. Suicide kills more than 1 million people every year and, increasingly, it is claiming the lives of young people and women. In addition, for every one death by suicide, there are 20 to 50 unsuccessful attempts.

Dentists, doctors and veterinarians are a particularly vulnerable group, due to easy access to lethal substances and an understanding of how the body reacts to those substances.

Efforts to protect the general public from lethal substances, such as requiring that fewer tablets of over-the-counter pain medication are available in each bottle, have succeeded in making suicide more difficult to accomplish.