BMJ  2005;330 (22 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7484.0-g

Editor's choice

Explaining suicide

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Death comes quickly this week, which is why I urge you to grow your brains, guard your privileges, and age a bit. Don't descend into bitterness and self pity, as I was advised recently; you will gain nothing. Find something to console you or make you laugh, like the story about the Pentagon's cunning plan to build a "gay bomb," containing an aphrodisiac chemical that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other, delivering a non-lethal blow to morale.

Also, there's probably someone with a worse deal than you. Take George W Bush, for example—his second term officially begins this week, and he faces a challenge to leave the world in a better state than he found it, say Martin McKee and Susan Foster (p 155). Domestic and international health policies are likely to be controversial, although there are some good ideas among Bush's reforms.

This issue, . . . [Full text of this article]

Kamran Abbasi, acting editor

(kabbasi@bmj.com)


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