NYT’s Couldn’t Find An Expert

The New York Times reports on the extraordinary efforts the Department of Veterans Affairs is making to offer hotline help to distressed veterans, some of whom may be contemplating suicide.

Midway through the article, the reporter asserts, “Experts agree that veterans are more likely, perhaps twice as much, to commit suicide as people who have never served in the military.” The reporter, within 1458 words, couldn’t cite any expert or source.

Curious, I searched for a source. CBS did a research project, of which CBS said in November 2007 the results showed such a high rate.

The calculations and comparisons to equivalent demographics were thoroughly fisked, showing about the same rate of suicide among non-veteran peers.

We await the CBS and NYT’s analyses of why doctors have a higher suicide rate than their non-physician peers, as revealed in the current Newsweek.

I’m sure they can find a way to tout nationalized healthcare as a cure.

UPDATE: CBS reports in an update that litigants claim a VA email demobstrates duplicity in statistics. The VA official replies, it doesn’t, but incomplete numbers under examination. In any event, the VA takes the matter seriously, and the potential numbers only reveal attempts at suicide, which haven’t been previously collected, and do not differ markedly from population statistics adjusted for demographics. The NYT's and CBS are in full-court press to press the court in San Francisco to side with litigants suing the VA for negligence toward vets.