Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

[BlackVelvet04]

I would love to know if this holds true in the United States.

Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

NewScientist.com news service
Andy Coghlan

Right-wing governments may sap some people's will to live and result in more suicides, conclude studies in Britain and Australia.

The researchers speculate that losers are more likely to kill themselves in the individualistic, "winner-takes-all" societies favoured by right wing governments, because they are left to fend for themselves. Wide disparities in wealth also sharpen any sense of hopelessness, the researchers argue.



Left wing governments tend to be more "inclusive" and community based, she says, decreasing the isolation felt by people down on their luck. Shaw's team calculates that over the past century, 35,000 extra suicides occurred when the Tories were in power.

"That's equivalent to one suicide for every day of the 20th Century, or two for every day that the Conservatives ruled," the team write in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.



Shaw and her colleagues found that on average, suicide rates were 17 per cent higher when the Conservatives were in power, compared to the annual average of 103 suicides per million population when opposition parties held office.



Shaw admits that attempts to connect the differences to ideologies are pure speculation. "But I'd be very interested to see if suicide rates are higher wherever there's a Right-wing government," she says. "I'd be particularly interested to see if the relationship holds in the US."

Rest of article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2817

[FlyingSquirrel]

1. If true, the Right Wingers probably applaud it

Removing oneself from the gene pool if you can't hack it is probably just what they're hoping for.

Strange since in this country the Right Wingers are actually against Darwinism...