CDC Says Teens Not Using Enough Drugs

Yesterday the CDC released the news that one of the smallest subsets of people who kill themselves saw an 8% increase from 2003 to 2004.

For all young people between ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent from 2003 to 2004 -- the biggest single-year bump in 15 years -- in what one official called "a dramatic and huge increase." ... The biggest increase -- about 76 percent -- was in the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-old girls.

That sounds alarming until you read that the overall rate is still fewer than one per 100,000 population. But the smaller the set, the less of an absolute change is needed to make percentages seem to skyrocket -- and to grab headlines.

Over at Seattle's mental health blog Furious Seasons, reporter Philip Dawdy points out that this "huge" increase among teens is nonetheless 251 lives -- out of the total 32,439 suicides in 2004. He also points out the shoddy journalism that lets the following assertion pass unchallenged:

Four years ago, federal regulators warned that antidepressants seemed to raise the risk of suicidal behavior among young people, so black box warnings were put on the drugs' packaging.

When partial teen suicide data was published earlier this year, experts noted at the time that the drop in sales of the drugs corresponded with a rise in the suicide rate. Now there is concern that some children who need the medication aren't getting it.

The simple fact is that black box warnings didn't appear until mid-October 2004, so unless this 8% increase occurred within the last 10 weeks of 2004, AP reporter Greg Bluestein should bill the pharmaceutical companies for his work writing ad copy. It would have been nice to know what the "drop in sales" actually was, over what time period, and how much less teens specifically were prescribed -- but who has time to research a story these days. Why not just quote unnamed "experts" and leave it at that?

Dawdy's post gives a lot more perspective on suicide in the U.S. and locally, including the deaths of KUOW's Cynthia Doyon and even -- bizarrely -- a Philip Dawdy. And his remains a lonely voice asking why the deaths of 21,000 white men (men make up 79% of total suicides) haunts the statistical background of this suicide "story" on how teens (think of the kids!) may not be getting all the drugs they need.