Simon Wessely
speaker
28 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2013
last heard May 2013
Simon Wessely’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
So by 1987, CBS announced it's 100,000.
The New York Times then put it up to 150,000, and the estimates vary up and down ever since.
Always, it's more than 58,000.
Now, the good thing about the U.S.
is they keep good statistics.
And the last best estimate that we have a couple of years ago, the figures are now around 12,000.
So 12,000 Vietnam vets have actually taken their own lives compared to the 58,000 who died in the war.
So you might say, well, there's no problem then.
We shouldn't be worrying about it.
But hopefully people listening to this programme will know these absolute numbers are really a bit of a trap because what really matters is the rate.
So the question isn't what's the absolute number, it's have more taken their own lives than would have died had they not been in the armed forces.
And actually that figure of 12,000 is more than you would expect if the standard population rates had been applying.
Every year around 25 to 30 Vietnam veterans will take their own lives who would not have done had they not served in the war.
So four times as many Gulf veterans have taken their own lives than died in the war.
That sounds like a major public health problem, but it isn't.
We've compared the total number of those who served in the Gulf and those who are in the military but didn't.
And there are 170 of them have taken their own lives, and that difference is not statistically significant.
And that is the key figure.
Has there been an increase in suicide from those who served in the Gulf compared to those who haven't?
And the answer is no.
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