Well, I suppose that’s one way to rein in the costs of Social Security and Medicare:
Suicide rates among middle-age Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription pain killers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm.
Really, NY Times? That’s the message you’re taking away from these stats: That a surge in baby boomer suicides may be linked to easy access to prescription pain killers? That’s the one possible contributing factor you choose to highlight in your lede?
In fact, year after year, about half of all suicides are committed using firearms, by far the most popular suicide method—especially among middle-age men, the group with the highest suicide rate by a long shot. True, the CDC data found that poisoning by all sources (including prescription painkillers) was up 18.5 percent for middle-age men since 1999, but the growth in firearm suicides didn’t lag far behind, up 14.9 percent. Meanwhile the big winner in the suicide method sweepstakes was suffocation, up 75 percent for middle-age men since 1999, and a whopping 115 percent for middle-age women. Hanging yourself is the new eating your gun! Who knew?
Tragically, 21,754 Americans age 35-64 committed suicide in 2010 (more than died in car accidents), 10,393 by shooting themselves with a gun. Poisoning by all means—not just prescription painkillers—came in a distant second at 4,722 middle-age suicides, suffocation third at 4,117 but gaining fast. And yet it’s “easy access” to palliative care, not guns (or ropes) that our nation’s paper of record chooses to warn us about.
(And by the way, if there’s a statistic that really jumps out from this report, it’s that the suicide rate for middle-age white men jumped 39.6 percent compared to only 4.7 percent for Asian men, 1.9 percent for Hispanic men, and 1.0 percent for black men. A middle-age white man is now three times more likely to commit suicide than a middle-age black, Asian, or Hispanic man. Go figure.)
- Centers for Disease Control