(HORSESHIT COUNTY) Doctors in Northern California say they have seen more deaths from suicide than they’ve seen from the coronavirus during the pandemic.
“The numbers are unprecedented,” Dr. Michael deBoisblanc of John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, told ABC 7 News about the increase of deaths by suicide, adding that he’s seen a “year’s worth of suicides” in the last four weeks alone.
Uh, natzsofast, Guido.
Clinical doctors don't see any suicides.
Coroners do.
You could look it up.
Doctors at the hospital only see a very few botched suicides that may eventually succeed, and attempted suicides, many of which were never very serious to begin with.
We call those "desperate cries for attention".
Because generally, people who really want to do it, do it.
And if you step off a tall enough building, or in front of a speeding train, there's no medical cure for the resultant concrete poisoning or failure to fly in which those two methods will result. But no one at the local hospital will ever see those.
The Medical Examiner, OTOH...
People who take an entire bottle of TicTacs or red Mike and Ike candies in front of their families/significant others, on the other hand, turn up fairly frequently.
Having only worked in the biz for 25 years, I can tell you this first-hand.
So Dr. Agendaselling Doofus is, quite simply, F.O.S.
(Hint: the first two letters there stand for "Full Of...").
So, other than the fact that he's lying his ass off, go on ahead and take his other statements for what they're worth.
You might do well to consider the legal maxim,
For the record, in the past three months, I've seen exactly one suicide attempt (that subsequently succeeded).
I've seen a couple of dozen people depressed (just like always) who were placed on mental health evaluation holds.
I've seen no other suicides, whatsoever.
I've also seen and personally treated 100 Kung Flu rule-outs, and two dozen confirmed positives, including at least one death (as the rest generally die days later in ICU, I have no numbers on them, but those placed on ventilators tend to have about a 90% fatality rate).
So just from personal experience, Dr. Bullshitter should STFU, and get back to doing his job, which includes neither huffing hopeium, nor bald-faced lying to the public. That behavior reflects poorly on his profession, his clinical judgment, and his own integrity.
Whatever his other points of view are, if you can't sell them without recourse to outright falsehood, they probably can't be sold to anyone. Nor should be.
16 comments:
If suicide doesn't count when we talk about gun violence then they don't count when we talk about the lock down either.
Really, I think another person on this site had the suicide matter correct the other day when he said that people who commit suicide own their own actions.
But I am sure that the anti lockdown brigade has already pounced on this to prove that the lockdown was useless. Holding people responsible for their own decisions, good bad or otherwise, won't even occur to them.
~Rhea
The whole county Walnut Creek is in has only had 36 deaths.
https://patch.com/california/walnutcreek/covid-19/2020-05-22
You're losing your perspective. Not every place is getting infected at the same rates.
You shit on the suicide science when I presented it two weeks ago. Now, MDs are seeing the same thing, and your response is the same emotion response as the "just the flu brah" crowd that you've spend so much time railing against.
Take a breath, and consider that there may be new data that falsifies your theory.
Aesop,
Again, I am someone without any healthcare training. About other things, I know a little bit about a lot, and a lot about a little. Not to brag, but most people would concede that I am an educated man, just not in the field of healthcare.
I agree with most of your points you made. I understand that most suicides are really calls for help, not serious attempts to end that person's time in this vale of tears. And, frankly, some would say that the milk of human kindness doesn't flow through my veins, at least as much as it does for many people. Before I retired I took the Metrolink to work for the last few years in order to avoid bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway. About once every six months, I would spend two hours at a stop because someone committed suicide-by-train, or some homeless loser in a drug haze walked in front of the locomotive cause he didn't know where he was. My view? Scrape off the engineer's windshield and keep going.
I don't believe that I am straining logic to propose the idea that there is a relationship between suicide attempts and actual suicides. If actual suicides increase, the number of suicide attempts is likely to increase, too. At least that makes sense to me.
The underlying issue is that both attempts and successes are further evidence of the toll the shut-in order is taking in California. Dealing with the pandemic is not simply a healthcare issue, just as World War II was not simply an armament production issue. All sorts of issues related to logistics, manpower, civilian support, and financial support were involved, to name but a few.
The issue is how long we can stand the impact while "the experts" work this out. We were told that the Wuhan virus posed little risk to Americans. Then We were told millions of Americans would die. Then we were told that we needed 15 days to flatten the curve. And then they moved the goal posts. One governor said that at least some restrictions would stay in place until a vaccine was developed. Study after study was contradicted by the next study that came along, e.g. wearing facemasks. Americans have lost all faith n the clowns at the CDC and WHO.
Meanwhile the "connected" ignored the rules. De Blasio sneaked off to the gym. The lesbian mayor of Chicago sneaked a haircut, even though on her best day ever she looked like something that my dear old grandmother would have described as "something the cat dragged in." Others in the elite retreated to their vacation homes or yachts in the Caribbean. Shut-in was for the "little people."
"
I will not willingly give up my First Amendment right to the "experts" to save several thousand lives, just as I won't give up my Second Amendment right to the anti-gunners to save several thousand lives ("Oh, if we could just save one life!"). There are bigger issues in the long term. It is terrible if anyone dies in such situations, but, again, as on a battlefield, certain national objectives require that we suffer "acceptable losses."
When Hillary made her incredibly stupid "deplorables" remark, Trump ran with it in what was an absolutely inspired stroke of genius. At his next rally, against a backdrop inspired by the musical, "Les Misérables," he made his entrance before a crowd composed of "Les Deplorables" to one of the musical's songs, "Do You Hear the People Sing?" Here's few lines:
"Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the songs of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!"
The song made me want to run to the barricades, too, and I never really figured out what they were rebelling about.
Today, people have had enough. Georgia, Florida, and Texas seem to have done better after the lockdown was lifted than before. The movement can't be stopped. Right or wrong, maybe more people have to die. I don't know who is right and who is wrong, but society must move on and give it a try before the country is in total ruins.
In the video, reporter Amy Hollyfield said “the rise that they (the staff at John Muir Medical Center) have seen in suicides” at 1:13 and “sharp rise in suicides” at 1:32, but the doctor on the broadcast at 1:40-1:45 spoke of “a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.” Attempts, not suicides.
In the first paragraph of the written article, the same claim Hollyfield made was repeated. However, later on in the article, the words “suicide attempts” appeared twice, plus the words “intentional injury.” At last, we have some accuracy.
The female news reporters (I think they are more accurately described as “readers” rather than reporters) obviously appear to be sensationalizing the subject on the video broadcast, to put it mildly, for the purpose of shock and attention grabbing. It is positively shameful, and they are clearly shameless.
@Phelps,
1) Suicidal people are, by definition, crazy.
They own their own fates. A lockdown does not.
2) @0 As noted above, the doctor could have told his tale truthfully, about seven different ways.
He chose the one way that's a bald-face lie.
I draw my own conclusions from the modus operandi.
3) I never said every place is getting infected at the same rates.
Whatever their rate there, it's irrelevant to the point made: Dr. Doofus is lying.
He practically never sees "suicides", so virtually any number of Kung Flu deaths beats his suicide view count ever, as soon as it gets to 1.
Words mean things. If he meant to say "suicide attempts", then he should have chosen his words with some clinical precision. If he's that sloppy in expressing factual data, he is a false witness, and probably a poor medical practitioner.
4) His referenced quote is the state of "suicide science". Hysterical scare quotes at odds with actual facts. I not only shit on that level of "science", I'll kick litter box sand on it too. That's not emotion; it's called judging shit by the smell emanating thence.
@Dr. B,
I'm curious as to what "a year's worth of suicide attempts" is.
One?
Five?
483?
Curiously, actual data is wholly absent.
So yet again, we have someone leveraging a medical diploma into an excuse for presenting the Underpants Gnome Theory Of Anything.
As I pointed out in the OP, this is sensationalism for the sake of an agenda, rising to the level of outright falsehood.
I discount anything connected with it on that basis.
@Survivorman99,
The correlation of suicide attempts to suicides is the same as the correlation between singles and home runs in baseball: there isn't any. Apples and oranges.
If it's a suicide, there's no attempt. If it's an attempt, there's no suicide.
The Venn diagram circles for those two things never intersect, of logical and grammatical necessity.
Whether an increase in one correlates with any commensurate increase in the other is a hypothesis in search of data.
Whether there's any rise in attempts or suicides during (let alone "because of") the shutdown is three correlations from reality, and a completely data-free assertion, to date, by anyone.
Completely anecdotally, we've seen fewer psych patients since February, not more. My deduction from that is that they're only as crazy as they have to be, and even the usual psychs don't want the COVID.
"The issue is how long we can stand the impact while "the experts" work this out. We were told that the Wuhan virus posed little risk to Americans. Then We were told millions of Americans would die. Then we were told that we needed 15 days to flatten the curve. And then they moved the goal posts. One governor said that at least some restrictions would stay in place until a vaccine was developed. Study after study was contradicted by the next study that came along, e.g. wearing facemasks. Americans have lost all faith n the clowns at the CDC and WHO."
Good. Stop listening to idiots. If that lesson has finally sunken in, learning has occurred. That's a net plus.
Fauci's been on my world-class @$$clown hit parade since 2014. Now perhaps you understand why.
Today, people have had enough.
Yes, thinking is hard, and they want to go back to mindlessly consuming.
And Gilligan was happy as long as he got some coconut crème pie.
That's how that syndrome manifests itself.
Georgia, Florida, and Texas seem to have done better after the lockdown was lifted than before.
I hope that continues. But let's leave a bookmark there, and revisit that in a couple of months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8
Right or wrong, maybe more people have to die.
it's not a right vs. wrong issue, it's a smart vs. stupid issue.
If people make the smartest choice they can based on available information, and people still die, "sh*t happens". (Those are nonetheless never "acceptable" losses. But they also aren't culpable losses.
but when people die because folks chose quick and stupid, because quick, they own those casualties, and nothing wipes those bloodstains off one's hands.
Ask Lady Macbeth about the quick way to the throne, and see how that shoe fits.
And there's more than one way to ruin a country.
But the quickest way to end a war is to surrender.
1) Suicidal people are crazy. Crazy is a medical condition. Treat it. You don't get to absolve yourself of your medical obligations because you don't like the disease they have. You can't treat a digestive problem by making someone obese and then ignoring obesity because you don't want to deal with it.
2) The only evidence that we have that he's not truthful is "Aesop says horseshit and some things that he thinks are cleverly worded." You've offered ZERO datum. You are simply naysaying. Why should we take you at your word about what you are seeing when you refuse to take him at his word?
3-4) Word salad. The shit that matters is above.
As I pointed out in the OP, this is sensationalism for the sake of an agenda, rising to the level of outright falsehood.
I discount anything connected with it on that basis.
And to me, you are both just Guys on the Internet. Without facts to back you up, he is as credible as you are -- moreso, in a small, tiny degree, because you've refused to deal with a lot of things that haven't turned out as you predicted here. You said back on March 9:
I'd love - LOVE - if I turn out to be all wrong on this (as would half a dozen armchair sceptics with low-level IQs and government-level critical thinking skills).
Where's the love, man?
1) I never argued for not treating them. The point is they are responsible for their own predicament. The lockdown is not. Like the weather, it simply is. And for the most part, crazy is neither treatable nor curable. We win a few, and a bit, but overall, it's not a great prognosis, ever. Now, if you can demonstrate a sudden and anomalous spike in suicides, bring the evidence forth.
2) The only evidence I have for saying he's not truthful is that he's not the medical examiner for Contra Costa County, i.e. the only guy in that county who "sees" suicides. Other than overlooking that 800-lb. gorilla, you almost had me there for a minute.
Here's the coroner's website for that county:
http://cocosheriff.org/about/biography.htm
Call me when you find out Dr. Bullshit Artiste is not That Guy.
QED.
Game. Set. Match.
3-4) The shit that matters is you refusing to acknowledge the obvious facts, i.e. the guy is bullshitting, and got caught doing it. Mind the brick wall of fact into which you just ran headfirst.
What is it about which you think I've been wrong?
You can't bitch about the exact fact that there was a society-wide lockdown in 47 states, starting about the day that was written, and then simultaneously complain that it therefore had no measurable effect on the outcome described if we did nothing. Pick one, but don't be so obtuse as to think you can have it both ways there, unless you're simply setting yourself on fire for comedy relief.
Re: suicide vs attempted suicides. During the psych nursing part of my career, I dealt with a fair number of attempted suicides. Some of them were cries for help. Others were unsuccessful because of poor planning. Still, it is true that if someone is serious enough, their odds of "success" go way up. As one person put it, no one attempts suicide with a .44 Remington Magnum.
Happy little small town. One shy of as many suicides during the lock down as during the whole last year. So there's that.
Am I misunderstanding that the consensus is that they had it coming, because they were weak and stupid?
I'm also not really understanding the idea that the "flatten the curve" quarantine until we can ramp up the PPE etc, became the "stay put until no-one gets corona-chan (and let's get our police state on)" lock down is some kind of elemental force of nature? It "just happens"?
Or as my friend's endocrinologist told her this week "...at least I don't have to tell you that you (as I do some of my patients) have an aggressive cancer but we cannot treat you because the Governor isn't allowing us yet. You have time."
We've all been praying for her, and of course we're very glad.
But how many of these cancer deaths count as "culpable"? Because they were sacrificed to save a certain other number of Wuhan Gurgling Death patients by delaying treatment?
Corona-chan gaslighting strikes again.
There is no "fast (or slow) and stupid" because there is no capacity for "smart" in too many of our rulers and our people. It really is about doing what you can, with what you have, as best you can.
Aesop,
Dr deBoisblanc says: suicide * attempts * (at 1:42 when i just watched it)...just sayin'
@CT,
1) The video is not the entire news article. Just sayin'.
If Dr. B.S. was "misquoted", he should have been yelling loudly to every competing news organization in town about it, and issued a clarifying press release.
>Crickets<.
2) "I've seen more suicide attempts in a year than people with Kung Flu!" sounds damning.
Until you find out, in a county with only 36 deaths, he may not have seen any Kung Flu patients at all, and "a year's worth" of suicide attempts, for him, may consist of two. Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
This is why basing the policy for a state of 40M people upon the anecdotal statements of Dr. Bumpkin is probably not wise, nor responsible public policy.
3) If we want to be fair, let's note that Dr. Mendacity is far less than half a tank of gas from the thriving metropolis of San Franshitsco, and amidst the entire SF-SJO greater metropolitan area, which, primarily due to the lockdown, has seen a relatively very small number of cases and deaths. Not none, to be sure, but all similarly under-affected, like his own county. Certainly nowhere as bad as my own neighbors in L.A. County, which government and populace is generally best described as 10M idiots in search of a brain.
So if he'd wanted to factual, rather than sensational, he could have stated actual numbers instead of comparing apples to pineapples, by lumping in suicides (or attempts) and been on firm clinical and factual ground, for suggesting that NorCal could probably move forward with opening things up, compared to SoCal.
But he didn't do that.
He went for the heart strings and emotions, tried to be clever, got tangled in his own shoelaces, and did an epic faceplant.
Exactly as noted.
He's still a liar (lying with statistics is still lying), and he's still an idiot.
The press, OTOH, are nearly always liars and idiots (pretty sure they recruit for that specifically), so anything they do in that line is dogs peeing on fire hydrants: it's what they do. Dr. Dimwit just conveniently carried the fire hydrant to them, and put it next to their desks.
@OH,
Nobody "has it coming".
They commit suicide because they choose to, as they do 24/7/365, because crazy.
When anyone has actual authoritative numbers showing a drastic spike in being crazy because of the lockdown, pony it up. the last guy tried came up with some WHO b.s. that showed that during an economic depression, suicides spiked - six months before the economic depression in question. I am not making that up, that was the actual conclusion. They actually said, in a WHO study, that people killed themselves in greater numbers (<1% more, IIRC, which is within the margin of error, btw) before an economic downturn, based on figures cobbled together from eleventy countries.
So who knew (or, in this case, WHO knew) people with mental health issues are also clairvoyant, and can become despondent and kill themselves months before anything goes wrong in society?
One presumes the authors of that recockulous bit of tripe are busily mining the suicide figures worldwide from last May-August to detect a similar spike in worldwide depression to the Kung Flu downturn.
This makes phrenology and astrology look respectable.
As for people not seeing patients with potentially life-ending diseases because of the lockdown, those deaths are indeed culpable, for any value of a governor who dictated that trips to the hardware and liquor store are "essential", but biopsies and treatment for potential cancers are not.
If you expect me to defend such blisteringly stupid behavior, I decline.
A jackass is a jackass, and jackassery is its own reward, and there's been plenty of it amongst TPTB to go around.
And yes, as I've said multiple times since the outset of this, the Gilligans of society are driving the bus, and YOYO to do as you see fit.
That was always true, and always going to be, but now that everyone's had their noses rubbed in it for three months straight, maybe it won't be such a hard sell the next time.
Except to the Gilligans.
Better Gilligan than Karen.
That's a Fool's Dilemma if ever there was.
The truth eventually catches up with you.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-excess-deaths-people-mental-health.html
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