Suicide Likely to Take 40,000 American Lives

Forget the days of whispering about suicide—it’s become a national epidemic, and is only likely to get worse over the years unless the country starts addressing the problem, writes Tony Dokoupil in this week’s Newsweek. Self-harm is likely to take 40,000 American lives this year; in 2010 suicide took more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined. It’s not the depressed teen who is taking his or her own life, but rather it’s the baby boomers, who currently have the highest suicide rate in the world. According to data exclusively obtained by Newsweek, there has been a 37 percent increase in the years of life lost to clinical depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and other mental disorders.