• by Kristina Chew
• August 16, 2012

Read more: aleppo, archaeology, assad, bashar al-assad, damascus, hama, lebanon, mideast,mideast conflict, russia, syria, united nations

Photo of Aleppo's Citadel by yeowatzup

“This is a grim reminder after the euphoria of the Olympics of the challenges we face and those that lie ahead,” said David Stuckler, a sociologist at Cambridge University who co-led the study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

The analysis found that between 2008 and 2010 there were 846 more suicides among men in England than would have been expected if previous trends continued, and 155 more among women.

Between 2000 and 2010 each annual 10 per cent increase in the number of unemployed people was associated with a 1.4 per cent increase in the number of male suicides, the study found.

The analysis used data from the National Clinical and Health Outcomes Database and the Office of National Statistics.

Keith Hawton, a professor at the Centre for Suicide Research at Oxford University who was not involved in the study, said its findings were “of considerable interest and certainly raise concerns”, but that they must be interpreted carefully.

“It is also important that they are not over-dramatized in a way that might increase thoughts of suicide in those affected by the recession,” he said in an e-mailed comment.

Mr. Stuckler, who worked with researchers from Liverpool University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, stressed while this kind of statistical study could not establish a causal link, the power of the associations was strong. Its conclusions were strengthened by other indicators of rising mental health problems, stress and anxiety, he added.

He also pointed out the study showed a small reduction in the number of suicides in 2010 which coincided with a slight recovery in male employment.

A survey of 300 family doctors published by the Insight Research Group on Tuesday found that 76 per cent of those questioned about the effects of the economic crisis said they thought it was making people unhealthier, leading to more anxiety, abortions and alcohol abuse.

Data this month from the government’s Health and Social Care Information Centre showed the number of prescriptions dispensed in England for antidepressants rose 9.1 per cent in 2010.

A study published last July, also by Mr. Stuckler, found that across Europe, suicide rates rose sharply from 2007 to 2009 as the financial crisis drove unemployment up and squeezed incomes.

The countries worst hit by severe economic downturns, such as Greece and Ireland, saw the most dramatic increases in suicides.

In Britain, there’s little doubt times have been getting harder. The economy has shrunk for the last nine months and now produces 4.5 per cent less than before the economic crisis.

Many Britons have had the worst squeeze in living standards for 40 years and the crisis has hit young people hard, with youth unemployment soaring above 20 per cent.

Mr. Stuckler’s BMJ study found that the number of unemployed men rose on average across Britain by 25.6 per cent each year from 2008 to 2010, a rise associated with a yearly increase in male suicides of 3.6 per cent.

“Much of men’s identity and sense of purpose is tied up with having a job. It brings income, status, importance...” Mr. Stuckler said in a telephone interview.

“And there’s also a pattern in the UK where men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women, while women are much more likely to report being depressed and seek help.”

Mr. Hawton noted that increases in suicides at times of economic recession had been reported before – for example in the Great Depression of the 1930s and in the economic downturn in Southeast Asia during the 1990s.

The World Health Organization estimates that every year, almost a million people die from suicide – a rate of 16 per 100,000, or one every 40 seconds. It also estimates that for every suicide, there are up to 20 attempted ones.

• by Sarah Vrba
• August 16, 2012

The Staggering Illuminati Hit List Just Keeps Growing and Growing

Now today in the news we have Jenny Gallagher the nurse who treated the Colorado massacre victims. She lived all this time being ok, alive and well until right after the massacre and then she drowns. Makes me wonder what she may have been told or overheard from the witnesses. Maybe she was told there was more than one shooter and just maybe she had a little help in her drowning?

Wow

We Can’t forget about all the 911 witnesses that died mysteriously too.

Attack on West Nile virus divides city Faced with hundreds of new cases, authorities turn to a controversial tactic not used since 1966. 'Dangerous'

DALLAS — On a cooler-than-usual Texas night, Macie Mills wasn't about to let a war on West Nile virus invade her patio time outside a local coffeehouse.

"I grew up with crop dusters in West Texas," Mills scoffed while curled up in a comfy chair.

Minutes later she and a friend watched a small twin-engine plane buzz over a hotel and a popular shopping center. From 300 feet, it dispensed an invisible fine mist of pesticides designed to attract and kill West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes.

Certainly not the renegade dusting of fields Mills remembers from back home, but the stakes are higher in the country's ninth-largest city full of freeways and tall buildings.

"Aerially spraying from a fixed-wing aircraft over cities at night is dangerous and only called upon if conditions are right and the health situation demands it," Joseph Conlon with the American Mosquito Control Association told Yahoo! News.

Dallas is suffering from the nation's deadliest outbreak of West Nile virus this year. Ten people have died and more than 200 others have fallen ill in less than two months, prompting leaders to declare a state of emergency. But aerial spraying is controversial because of safety concerns, cost and effectiveness.

Leaders acknowledged a public backlash, but said they had no other choice.

"I cannot have any more deaths on my conscience because we didn't take action," Mayor Mike Rawlings told reporters.

Aerial spraying hasn't been used in Dallas since 1966, when more than a dozen deaths were blamed on encephalitis.

There is no vaccine for West Nile virus, which more often impacts younger and older people.Symptoms can include headache, high fever, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, tremors, disorientation and paralysis.

Texas mosquitoes. (Photo: KVUE-TV Austin)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 43 states have reported West Nile virus infections in people, birds or mosquitoes this year. Twenty-six people have died and nearly 700 have gotten sick.

"The 693 cases reported thus far in 2012 is the highest number of West Nile virus disease cases reported to CDC through the second week in August since West Nile virus was first detected in the United States in 1999," the CDC said in a statement.

Nearly half of those sickened have been from Texas, where 17 people have died. With several weeks still left in the peak West Nile season, the state fears it could be the deadliest year yet.

Dallas' increase in mosquitoes is being blamed on ideal breeding conditions: a wet spring in North Texas and the hot, dry weather now settled across the nation's heartland.

"Oh my gosh, a month ago you couldn't sit out in the backyard," said North Dallas resident LeeAnne Revell.

But the push for pesticides by plane hasn't been popular with everyone.

"Aerial poison spraying for West Nile starts in an hour," Kelley in Dallas tweeted. "If anybody needs me, the kittens & I will be hiding in the closet in our hazmat suits."

Not all politicians were in agreement either. Councilman Sheffie Kadane sent a last-minute plea for the mayor to change his mind, the Dallas Morning News reported.

"I implore you to consider natural herbicides as an alternative to spraying," he wrote. "Please do not spray!"

Public health officials and the company in charge of the mission promised that low dosages of Duet Adulticide, the EPA-approved chemical dropped from the plane, is not harmful.

Still, a recorded phone message sent out by the city advised citizens to stay inside during the spraying.

Many heeded the warning, but many didn't.

"Go in and take a shower if it falls on you," said Brad Hobson, who watched the planes outside the coffee shop with Macie Mills. "I figured I'd smell something, but I smell more diesel from passing cars."

Two planes treated 50,000 acres on Thursday before being halted by rain. Several more nights will be required to cover neighboring suburbs.

The pilots wearing night-vision goggles had to dodge at least one neighborhood Thursday: the one-mile no-fly zone surrounding former President George W. Bush's North Dallas home.

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