Restricting Pesticides Could Greatly Reduce Suicide Rates Worldwide
by Trey Granger
Published on September 19th, 2007
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ScienceDaily features the results of a poll by the University of Bristol that has found a relationship between the restriction of toxic pesticides and a decrease in suicides worldwide.
The study was based on the suicide rate in Sri Lanka, which increased eight-fold from 1950 to 1995 and had been cut in half by 2005. Restrictions on pesticide imports were enforced in Sri Lanka in 1995 and 1998.
While these numbers can be seen as somewhat of a coincidence, pesticide self-poisoning causes an estimated 300,000 deaths in Asia per year, which is over a third of the world’s suicides. The World Health Organization supports very similar numbers.
