I do not believe this!

[mutleydog]

Speculations on suicide and depression
KUTV, "Eye On America," CBS News, 3 June 2002

Misstatement:

"And with the nation's ninth highest suicide rate, Utah is even getting the federal government's attention."

Clarification:

Suicide is a bigger problem in the western United States than in the rest of the country. In the west, only California and Washington have lower rates of suicide than Utah. So to speculate on possible connections between depression, suicide and a high percentage of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is misleading.

Research indicates that among active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the suicide rate is substantially lower than in the rest of the state's population.

I wonder if they count the inactive/excommunicated members of the church in this statistic! In an earlier article they pronounced that Utah was over 70% lds - Mmmmm....unless the remaining 30% are increasing the suicide statistics in Utah, how can the church be so ignorant in their response?! I can see another bit of mis-leading information there!!

Can anyone else?

[peter_mary]

Speculations on suicide and depression
KUTV, "Eye On America," CBS News, 3 June 2002

Misstatement:

"And with the nation's ninth highest suicide rate, Utah is even getting the federal government's attention."

Clarification:

Suicide is a bigger problem in the western United States than in the rest of the country. In the west, only California and Washington have lower rates of suicide than Utah. So to speculate on possible connections between depression, suicide and a high percentage of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is misleading.

Research indicates that among active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the suicide rate is substantially lower than in the rest of the state's population.

I wonder if they count the inactive/excommunicated members of the church in this statistic! In an earlier article they pronounced that Utah was over 70% lds - Mmmmm....unless the remaining 30% are increasing the suicide statistics in Utah, how can the church be so ignorant in their response?! I can see another bit of mis-leading information there!!

Can anyone else?

If I were a Church apologist, I might approach it this way: (SATIRE ALERT!!! PLEASE DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TAKE THE FOLLOWING LITERALLY! DOING SO WILL RESULT IN LOOKING MORE FOOLISH THAN ME!)

"Suicide tends to be higher in the 8 Western states than the rest of the country, primarily due to the prevalence of firearms in the home. So recognizing that California and Washington have lower rates than Utah, that puts Utah at roughly the number 6 position for highest rate of suicide. Now, that all by itself seems disturbing, until you look at the bigger picture of what's going on here. Note that the STATE of Utah also has six corners. What's the big deal? I'll show you. When you realize that the critics are trying to pin this problem on the Church, it's critical to also look at the number one symbol of Mormonism, namely the Salt Lake Temple...which has 6 spires. Put it all together, and you get 666, the symbol of ultimate evil! Clearly, this is a smear job on the part of the adversary to try to convince the rest of the world that the LDS religion is responsible for the high rate of suicide in the great State of Utah, when in fact, all it really means is that our people are better shots."

Paul

[dogzilla]

::spewing diet coke all over the monitor::

Good one, Paul! :D

[peter_mary]

::spewing diet coke all over the monitor::



...yeah, and all over me, too! Cover your mouth next time, please! Which reminds me...we've gotta talk about the sneezing...

Paul

:D :D :D

[noodle]

If I were a Church apologist, I might approach it this way: (SATIRE ALERT!!! PLEASE DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TAKE THE FOLLOWING LITERALLY! DOING SO WILL RESULT IN LOOKING MORE FOOLISH THAN ME!)

"Suicide tends to be higher in the 8 Western states than the rest of the country, primarily due to the prevalence of firearms in the home. So recognizing that California and Washington have lower rates than Utah, that puts Utah at roughly the number 6 position for highest rate of suicide. Now, that all by itself seems disturbing, until you look at the bigger picture of what's going on here. Note that the STATE of Utah also has six corners. What's the big deal? I'll show you. When you realize that the critics are trying to pin this problem on the Church, it's critical to also look at the number one symbol of Mormonism, namely the Salt Lake Temple...which has 6 spires. Put it all together, and you get 666, the symbol of ultimate evil! Clearly, this is a smear job on the part of the adversary to try to convince the rest of the world that the LDS religion is responsible for the high rate of suicide in the great State of Utah, when in fact, all it really means is that our people are better shots."

Paul

LOL!!! That's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time! :D :D Could we possibly add just one more "smiley" face...please??? How 'bout SATAN ?!

[Born Free]

Speculations on suicide and depression
KUTV, "Eye On America," CBS News, 3 June 2002

Misstatement:

"And with the nation's ninth highest suicide rate, Utah is even getting the federal government's attention."

Clarification:

Suicide is a bigger problem in the western United States than in the rest of the country. In the west, only California and Washington have lower rates of suicide than Utah. So to speculate on possible connections between depression, suicide and a high percentage of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is misleading.

Research indicates that among active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the suicide rate is substantially lower than in the rest of the state's population.

I wonder if they count the inactive/excommunicated members of the church in this statistic! In an earlier article they pronounced that Utah was over 70% lds - Mmmmm....unless the remaining 30% are increasing the suicide statistics in Utah, how can the church be so ignorant in their response?! I can see another bit of mis-leading information there!!

Can anyone else?

I went looking for that data, only finding the 2002 stats it at:

http://www.suicidology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=21

The first thing that came to mind was "I wonder what is the correlation between suicide stats and the education levels in the state look like. Utah is ranked 11th at 14.7/100,000 against 11.00 as the national average. The mountain region scored a 16.9 rate, which basically puts UTah a bit ahead of teh regional average.

You guys will know the States better than me, but my guess was that most the states ahead of Utah would have lower education levels and probably similar levels of gun ownership. I think they are high rural populations, and isolation is often a factor in suicidality.

Our Australian experience has been the suicide by gun has declined since gun access has declined since the gun recall after the Hobart Massacre. As I recall overall suicide rates dropped, as a gun is a very lethal (productive in terms of results) way to attempt suicide.

So, if I put all that together, higher education level, high gun access, 70% Mormon population, then one is left to conclude that Mormonism is not looking good. The higher eductation levels should put the Utah stats down, because it usually brings with it better income, and more creative options. So the one factor that sticks out like the proverbial is Mormonism as having some sort of problematic link to poor mental health.

Mormonism is usually so keen to leap up and claim its better performance on education, cancer etc, so I wonder if we can expect them to leap forth a "own' their abismal outcomes on this front.

Daryl

[Jeff_Ricks]

Speculations on suicide and depression
KUTV, "Eye On America," CBS News, 3 June 2002

Misstatement:

"And with the nation's ninth highest suicide rate, Utah is even getting the federal government's attention."

Clarification:

Suicide is a bigger problem in the western United States than in the rest of the country. In the west, only California and Washington have lower rates of suicide than Utah. So to speculate on possible connections between depression, suicide and a high percentage of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is misleading.

Research indicates that among active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the suicide rate is substantially lower than in the rest of the state's population.

I wonder if they count the inactive/excommunicated members of the church in this statistic! In an earlier article they pronounced that Utah was over 70% lds - Mmmmm....unless the remaining 30% are increasing the suicide statistics in Utah, how can the church be so ignorant in their response?! I can see another bit of mis-leading information there!!

Can anyone else?

In my opinion, when you average it all out and take Utah's high rate of suicide, high rate of depression, often higher than national average divorce rate, etc. and figure that in with low cancer, low binge drinking, etc. it all comes out a wash, the Church still comes out as a failure because taken as a whole it contributes nothing toward the betterment of its member's lives like it leads the world to believe. If the Church is true and led by the god who created the world you’d think his program would give his church a significant edge over all other gentile programs and belief systems. You’d think the Lord could do better than a C average grade.

Jeff