The British Med­ical Jour­nal has an arti­cle that I’ve spo­ken of numer­ous times lately (IRL), dis­cussing how media cov­er­age of sui­cides affects the rate of sim­i­lar sui­cides.

There is clear evi­dence that the media may affect method spe­cific sui­cide rates. In Britain an excess of about 60 sui­cides by burn­ing occurred in the 12 months after the widely pub­li­cised polit­i­cal sui­cide by burn­ing of a woman in Geneva.

It is argued that sui­cides occur only among those who are already sui­ci­dal and it is only the choice of method that is influ­enced by pub­lic­ity. […] Although media atten­tion may pre­cip­i­tate clus­ters of sui­cide, these occur only among those who would com­mit sui­cide sooner or later any way, the pub­lic­ity merely act­ing as a pre­cip­i­tant to an inevitable event.

Why would I be talk­ing about this? Brid­gend is not too far away.