Like driving, handguns, and house-fires, unemployment can kill-but are there specific antecedents mediating those increased suicides now predicted for the current economic depression (July 25, p 270)? The study of European Union countries that reported an association between unemployment and increased suicide and homicide also found increased deaths directly from alcohol abuse. The missing link is that concurrent alcohol intoxication could be a factor in as many as 65% of suicides. That is no more improbable than alcohol being afactor in some irresponsible car crashes or unpremeditated murders.
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