Not only quick wins important because they cause the good thing to happen earlier, but it can also be a step in the right direction for long-term systemic change like your example with the Australian government promoting meat reduction. I think meat reduction is a top priority but lately I’ve been thinking of putting my donations toward something that seems to have the biggest medium-term payoff: reducing pesticide-related suicides in the developing world. It causes hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of acute illnesses a year, and it is very easy to make progress on (ie. by banning the most toxic pesticides, and having better controls for pesticides like centralized storage). Maybe in a few years, I’ll go back to meat reduction once more progress is made on pesticide poisoning but right now, it’s so neglected and easy to make progress on through lobbying governments that I feel I cannot justify funding anything else!
Edit: I want to address a few myths about suicide.
People who commit suicide want to die.
This is rarely the case. Most suicides in the world are done by impulsivity during a time of severe stress, not because the person has made a clear-headed decision to die. Or it is a call for attention. The attempter usually calls 911 after their attempt or cooperates with help sent for them. Studies of people who survive violent suicide attempts show that the first thought they have once they “jump” is that they want to live. Even if the person thinks he wants to die, he really wants to be out of his difficult life situation and needs help for that.
2) Reducing means of suicides won’t reduce suicides because people made their choice to kill themselves and will find other means.
Suicide is very opportunistic, particularly when done out of impulsivity. It is actually rare for someone to “decide to die by any means necessary”. People usually attempt suicide if there’s a quick an easy means to do so: a handgun in the drawer, poison (pesticide) in the cabinet. Studies have shown that making it harder to kill yourself is very effective at reducing actual and attempted suicides. For instance, some bridges get reputations for being suicide magnets. If a fence is put up making it impossible to jump, you’d think that people would just jump off other bridges, but actually usually they don’t. Sri Lanka used to have the world’s highest suicide rate. They banned the most toxic pesticide(s) and overnight their suicide rate was cut in half, even factoring in that people would use other pesticides instead! Even Britain had a big fall in suicides after banning the most toxic pesticides.
3) Suicides “made their choice” so don’t deserve funds that could go to helping people who are innocent.
By this reasoning, we shouldn’t treat people who engage in risky activities, or knowingly unhealthy habits like smoking or overeating. Smokers and fat people “make their choice” a few times a day for decades whereas it could be a few seconds of weakness in the case of a suicide. Also, there are 3 million hospital admissions a year in developing nations for deliberate pesticide ingestion and that takes up a lot of resources that could be used for other sick people.
Treating deeper causes of suicides like depression and unemployment are also important, of course, but they are much, much harder and less cost effective than passing a few laws regulating pesticides and saving tens of thousands of people a year right away (not including non-fatal acute poisoning which is bad in itself). Also, a those bereaved by the death of a loved one through suicide are much more traumatized than if they died another way. They will be traumatized for life.
I think it’s important to first capture the low hanging fruit.
banning the most toxic pesticides, and having better controls for pesticides like centralized storage
I applaud your goal of preventing painful suicide attempts, but I think your approach is wrong-headed. If you ban pesticides, there will still be other bad methods available, e.g. CO poisoning.
My suggestion would be to make pentobarbital available to everybody who wants to die, perhaps with a short waiting period so they are forced to think it through. But of course, that’s not politically feasible.
Your approach of banning and restricting doesn’t actually add value to anybody’s life. It doesn’t make their lives better. It doesn’t fix the reasons they want to die in the first place. It doesn’t even pay their rent or put food on the table. It doesn’t even remove painful suicide attempts from the demographic.
I would go so far to say that doing nothing is actually better than this naive paternalism. But that may be too harsh. Even so, it certainly doesn’t beat GiveDirectly. At least they add actual value to people’s lives (other than the paid lobbyists, that is).
Pesticides are the most common method of suicide in the world. Michael Eddelson at the University of Edinburgh appears to be the world leader in terms of mitigation research on this topic from what I gather so far.
I can’t find any charities that work on this topic except for the International Association of Suicide Prevention, but I think IASP may be research-focused and not as big on advocacy. I’m waiting to hear back from them, I could be wrong. There are a few pesticide-reduction charities like Pesticide Action Network, but they seem to be focused on banning the most environmentally-harmful pesticides, although I’m sure there’s an overlap there. I’ll get back to you once I have more information.
Soz, read the links. There are some great efforts underway that look fundable.
“Several approaches have been proposed to reduce mortality from pesticide self-poisoning including restricting access to means through regulation; conversion to less toxic pesticides; development of single-use packaging; safe storage of pesticides; agricultural strategies and work with pesticide vendors; improving medical management; and communication and training initiatives. A number of projects are now underway to assess the effectiveness of a range of interventions aimed at reducing pesticide self-poisoning in China, India and Sri Lanka.”
Making suicide more inconvenient is certainly an effective goal. Gas ovens and over the counter pain killer restrictions was time-series consistent with an over 50% reduction in the suicide rate (its a compelling graph but not publicly available—UK government back-waters).
The issue is though, how do you make it really annoying to kill yourself from pesticides without getting rid of the benefits of pesticides?
There are many pesticides that are cheap and effective AND non-toxic. Thus, simply banning the toxic pesticides is the solution. It doesn’t affect crop yields.
FYI, gas ovens are no longer effective ways to kill yourself. Gas costs less and is much lower greenhouse gas emissions than electric resistance, though there are concerns with indoor air quality.
Not only quick wins important because they cause the good thing to happen earlier, but it can also be a step in the right direction for long-term systemic change like your example with the Australian government promoting meat reduction. I think meat reduction is a top priority but lately I’ve been thinking of putting my donations toward something that seems to have the biggest medium-term payoff: reducing pesticide-related suicides in the developing world. It causes hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of acute illnesses a year, and it is very easy to make progress on (ie. by banning the most toxic pesticides, and having better controls for pesticides like centralized storage). Maybe in a few years, I’ll go back to meat reduction once more progress is made on pesticide poisoning but right now, it’s so neglected and easy to make progress on through lobbying governments that I feel I cannot justify funding anything else!
Edit: I want to address a few myths about suicide.
People who commit suicide want to die.
This is rarely the case. Most suicides in the world are done by impulsivity during a time of severe stress, not because the person has made a clear-headed decision to die. Or it is a call for attention. The attempter usually calls 911 after their attempt or cooperates with help sent for them. Studies of people who survive violent suicide attempts show that the first thought they have once they “jump” is that they want to live. Even if the person thinks he wants to die, he really wants to be out of his difficult life situation and needs help for that.
2) Reducing means of suicides won’t reduce suicides because people made their choice to kill themselves and will find other means.
Suicide is very opportunistic, particularly when done out of impulsivity. It is actually rare for someone to “decide to die by any means necessary”. People usually attempt suicide if there’s a quick an easy means to do so: a handgun in the drawer, poison (pesticide) in the cabinet. Studies have shown that making it harder to kill yourself is very effective at reducing actual and attempted suicides. For instance, some bridges get reputations for being suicide magnets. If a fence is put up making it impossible to jump, you’d think that people would just jump off other bridges, but actually usually they don’t. Sri Lanka used to have the world’s highest suicide rate. They banned the most toxic pesticide(s) and overnight their suicide rate was cut in half, even factoring in that people would use other pesticides instead! Even Britain had a big fall in suicides after banning the most toxic pesticides.
3) Suicides “made their choice” so don’t deserve funds that could go to helping people who are innocent.
By this reasoning, we shouldn’t treat people who engage in risky activities, or knowingly unhealthy habits like smoking or overeating. Smokers and fat people “make their choice” a few times a day for decades whereas it could be a few seconds of weakness in the case of a suicide. Also, there are 3 million hospital admissions a year in developing nations for deliberate pesticide ingestion and that takes up a lot of resources that could be used for other sick people.
Treating deeper causes of suicides like depression and unemployment are also important, of course, but they are much, much harder and less cost effective than passing a few laws regulating pesticides and saving tens of thousands of people a year right away (not including non-fatal acute poisoning which is bad in itself). Also, a those bereaved by the death of a loved one through suicide are much more traumatized than if they died another way. They will be traumatized for life. I think it’s important to first capture the low hanging fruit.
I applaud your goal of preventing painful suicide attempts, but I think your approach is wrong-headed. If you ban pesticides, there will still be other bad methods available, e.g. CO poisoning.
My suggestion would be to make pentobarbital available to everybody who wants to die, perhaps with a short waiting period so they are forced to think it through. But of course, that’s not politically feasible.
Your approach of banning and restricting doesn’t actually add value to anybody’s life. It doesn’t make their lives better. It doesn’t fix the reasons they want to die in the first place. It doesn’t even pay their rent or put food on the table. It doesn’t even remove painful suicide attempts from the demographic.
I would go so far to say that doing nothing is actually better than this naive paternalism. But that may be too harsh. Even so, it certainly doesn’t beat GiveDirectly. At least they add actual value to people’s lives (other than the paid lobbyists, that is).
(No personal offense intended in this post)
what is the pesticide initiative and what’s the link between it and suicide please? Thanks!
Pesticides are the most common method of suicide in the world. Michael Eddelson at the University of Edinburgh appears to be the world leader in terms of mitigation research on this topic from what I gather so far.
I can’t find any charities that work on this topic except for the International Association of Suicide Prevention, but I think IASP may be research-focused and not as big on advocacy. I’m waiting to hear back from them, I could be wrong. There are a few pesticide-reduction charities like Pesticide Action Network, but they seem to be focused on banning the most environmentally-harmful pesticides, although I’m sure there’s an overlap there. I’ll get back to you once I have more information.
Further information: WHO: Pesticides are a leading suicide method International Journal of Epidemiology article on pesticide self harm International Association of Suicide Prevention Pesticide Poisoning page
Soz, read the links. There are some great efforts underway that look fundable.
“Several approaches have been proposed to reduce mortality from pesticide self-poisoning including restricting access to means through regulation; conversion to less toxic pesticides; development of single-use packaging; safe storage of pesticides; agricultural strategies and work with pesticide vendors; improving medical management; and communication and training initiatives. A number of projects are now underway to assess the effectiveness of a range of interventions aimed at reducing pesticide self-poisoning in China, India and Sri Lanka.”
Making suicide more inconvenient is certainly an effective goal. Gas ovens and over the counter pain killer restrictions was time-series consistent with an over 50% reduction in the suicide rate (its a compelling graph but not publicly available—UK government back-waters).
The issue is though, how do you make it really annoying to kill yourself from pesticides without getting rid of the benefits of pesticides?
There are many pesticides that are cheap and effective AND non-toxic. Thus, simply banning the toxic pesticides is the solution. It doesn’t affect crop yields.
Let me know where you get to with it, very interesting proposal!
FYI, gas ovens are no longer effective ways to kill yourself. Gas costs less and is much lower greenhouse gas emissions than electric resistance, though there are concerns with indoor air quality.