Danger Room links to a CBS story on an allegedly disproportional number of suicides by veterans. Supporting an anecdotal piece on veterans of the current war, CBS pulls up statistics showing that veterans committed suicide at twice the rate of the average population.
Shock! Horror!
No.
In the US, male veterans outnumber female veterans 13:1. Since four times as many males as women commit suicide in the general population, you'd expect the rate among veterans to be close to the rate among males - 17.6/100,000 per year in 2002 - and indeed it is, if the CBS raw numbers are correct.
CBS also makes an issue of the fact that suicide rates among younger veterans exceed that of the general population by an even bigger margin - but again, that's what you'd expect, because in that age group, the male-to-female imbalance in suicide rates is greatest, almost six to one.
Suicide is tragedy. What it does not seem to be, among veterans, is an epidemic.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! Thanks for the link. Ares is the defense blog of the Aviation Week & Space Technology group and the online branch of Defense Technology International, the group's new military-tech journal.
UPDATE: RedState does some more legwork and slams another torpedo into the smoking, listing wreck of CBS News' credibility.
After all that, you might be getting somewhere with your epidemiology. Until then, you're just stirring mud with CBS.
Let us know what you find.
I applaud the preemptive information about real veteran's public health statistics. History tells us that an important part of the left's losing the Viet Nam War was making veterans into mentally defective killers. Now that we are winning in Iraq, its time to pull out that card again.
Well, it isn't going to work this time.
Do your own statistical analysis, schmuck
If you can't see the common sense in that, it's your problem, not mine.
As for "History tells us that an important part of the left's losing the Viet Nam War was making veterans into mentally defective killers", you're tripping. The "left", whatever that is, didn't do either. outside of your opinions.
Sober up and get some sleep.
That's all important stuff to look at, and (as you correctly point out) it's not my area of expertise. On the other hand, as your Greek philospher buddies pointed out while you were getting your butt handed to you at Thermopylae, it doesn't matter a pair of used dingo's kidneys whether I am an aviation expert, an icthyologist or a stamp collector. Argumentum ad hominem, if you don't mind me switching languages. What matters was whether the topline criticism of CBS' topline conclusion was correct, which so far it seems to have been.
From the article:
"We asked the acting head of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Georgia, Steve Rathbun, to calculate the rate of suicide for 2004 to 2005. Rathbun adjusted the rates of suicide for age, gender and any potential error in the gathering of the raw data by the states."
There you go. They already thought of that blatantly obvious point and corrected their data. I understand why you'd miss this subtle point though, I mean the methodology summary was all of 4 paragraphs long.
Thanks for the observation.
However the research was done, however, the central point remains intact. The case for the "suicide epidemic" is based on the statement that the suicide rate for veterans is twice that of the average population. But this is misleading, simply because the veteran population is 93 per cent male.
Quite simply, the CBS veteran-suicide rate is in line with average male suicide rates. You don't need to dig into their own research to know that that comparison undermines the notion of an epidemic.
Like the French or Japanese ones (19 and 24 per 100 000)!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_and_methodology_of_suicide