Copycats in Pilot Aircraft-Assisted Suicides after the Germanwings Incident.

Aircraft-assisted pilot suicide is a rare but serious phenomenon. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in pilot aircraft-assisted suicide risks, i.e., a copycat effect, in the U.S. and Germany after the Germanwings 2015 incident in the French Alps. Aircraft-assisted pilot suicides were searched in the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident investigation database and in the German Bundestelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (BFU) Reports of Investigation database five years before and two years after the deliberate crash of the Germanwings flight into the French Alps in 2015. The relative risk (RR) of the aircraft-assisted pilot suicides was calculated. Two years after the incident, three out of 454 (0.66%) fatal incidents were aircraft-assisted suicides compared with six out of 1292 (0.46%) in the prior five years in the NTSB database. There were no aircraft-assisted pilot suicides in the German database during the two years after or five years prior to the Germanwings crash. The relative aircraft-assisted pilot suicide risk for the U.S. was 1.4 (95% CI 0.3-4.2) which was not statistically significant. Six of the pilots who died by suicide had told someone of their suicidal intentions. We consider changes in the rate to be within a normal variation. Responsible media coverage of aircraft incidents is important due to the large amount of publicity that these events attract.

[Suicide and euthanasia : Discourse on physician-assisted suicide]. / Suizidalität und Sterbehilfe : Diskurs über den ärztlich assistierten Suizid.

Suicidal thoughts and behavior have been a part of human nature since the beginning of mankind. In his autobiographical work From my Life: Poetry and Truth Goethe summarized two important aspects: "Suicide is an event of human nature which, whatever may be said and done with respect to it, demands the sympathy of every man, and in every epoch must be discussed anew". The authors of this article aim to motivate the readership to question and analyze this complex topic and the accompanying multifaceted positions with a summarized presentation of historical aspects and the more recent political developments.

Assisted suicide laws create discriminatory double standard for who gets suicide prevention and who gets suicide assistance: Not Dead Yet responds to Autonomy, Inc.

Not Dead Yet is a national disability rights organization formed in 1996 to articulate and organize the disability rights opposition to legalization of assisted suicide. In the first half of 2009, Not Dead Yet and four other national disability organizations joined in an amicus brief filed in Baxter v. State of Montana, an assisted suicide case on appeal to the state Supreme Court. Autonomy, Inc., another disability organization, filed an amicus brief in favor of a constitutional right to assisted suicide. The author reviews the lower court opinion and the key arguments in these amicus briefs from the perspective of Not Dead Yet. The Montana District Court concluded that the privacy and dignity provisions of the Montana Constitution establish a constitutional right to physician assisted suicide for terminally ill people, and that potential abuses of that right could be regulated by state statute. The author addresses the question, "What does disability have to do with it?" The author uses a combination of clinical research, legal analysis and the Oregon Reports on assisted suicide to examine the claim that abuses can be prevented by restricting assisted suicide to competent people who are terminally ill and choose it voluntarily. Autonomy, Inc.'s arguments explicitly depend on the medical profession's ability to reliably predict terminal status, and the capacity of society and the law to implement a double standard of suicide prevention and suicide assistance based on terminal status. Not Dead Yet's central argument is that such a double standard based on health status constitutes unlawful discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The author highlights data from the Oregon Reports demonstrating that lethal prescriptions were issued to people who were not terminally ill under the law's definition, and examines various problems of implementation and enforcement under the Oregon and Washington assisted suicide statutes. Particular attention is given to the problems associated with the role of physicians as gatekeepers under the statutes, providing examples of physicians pressuring people to forego life-sustaining treatment and involuntarily withholding life-sustaining treatment.

Legal bans on pro-suicide web sites: an early retrospective from Australia.

There are worldwide concerns that pro-suicide web sites may trigger suicidal behaviors among vulnerable individuals. In 2006, Australia became the first country to criminalize such sites, sparking heated debate. Concerns were expressed that the law casts the criminal net too widely; inappropriately interferes with the autonomy of those who wish to die; and has jurisdictional limitations, with off-shore web sites remaining largely immune. Conversely, proponents point out that the law may limit access to domestic pro-suicide web sites, raise awareness of Internet-related suicide, mobilize community efforts to combat it, and serve as a powerful expression of societal norms about the promotion of suicidal behavior.

Religion and spirituality along the suicidal path.

The inner experience of spiritual and religious feelings is an integral part of the everyday lives of many individuals. For over 100 years the role of religion as a deterrent to suicidal behavior has been studied in various disciplines. We attempt to systematize the existing literature investigating the relationship between religion/spirituality and suicide in this paper. After an overview of the attitudes of the dominant religions (e.g., Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism) toward suicide, the three main theories that have speculated regarding the link between religion and suicide are presented: "integration theory" (Durkheim, 1897/1997), "religious commitment theory" (Stack, 1983a; Stark, 1983), and "network theory" (Pescosolido & Georgianna, 1989). Subsequent to this theoretical introduction, we report on studies on religion/spirituality keeping the suicidal path as a reference: from suicidal ideation to nonlethal suicidal behavior to lethal suicidal behavior. Studies presenting indications of religious beliefs as a possible risk factor for suicidal behavior are also presented. The last section reviews possible intervention strategies for suicidal patients and suicide survivors. Indications for future research, such as more studies on nonreligious forms of spirituality and the use of qualitative methodology to achieve a better and deeper understanding of the spiritual dimension of suicidal behavior and treatment, are offered.

Attitudes toward preventing versus assisting suicide: a correction to an earlier publication.

A sample of 50 college students was more in favor of preventing suicide than assisting suicide. Support for assisting suicide was associated with judging-perceiving scores on the Keirsey-Bates Temperament Survey.