To: combjelly who wrote (353748 ) 11/10/2007 12:55:53 AM From: TimF Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574212 I'd have to see data to support that assertion. That would be extraordinary if true. Nonsense. Accidental death is the most common cause of death of people under 40 in the US, and the 5th leading cause of death overall (suicide isn't one of the top 5 BTW) Nothing extraordinary about it alone being more than suicide by itself, let alone it combined with homicide being higher. "113,000 deaths in 2005" "For people between 1 and 41 years of age, accidents are the leading cause of death in the nation. While accidents continue to be the 5th leading cause of death overall, exceeded only by heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic lower respiratory diseases"nsc.org I simply looked at about a dozen or so with a higher life expectancy. starting with the top of the list. The country at the top of that list of life expectancies (Japan) has the higher suicide rate among the rich nations (highest in the world other than some formerly communist East European countries). Most other countries, including most other countries with higher life expectancies than the US have a much lower suicide rate. Other countries near the top of that life expectancy list, like Switzerland, also have a high suicide rate. But if you look at the list of rich developed countries the US isn't at the bottom. We have a higher rate than Spain, Italy, the UK, and others, only marginally less than Canada's rate, or New Zealand's Iceland's, Ireland's, Australia's, Sweden's, Germany's etc.en.wikipedia.org You might not have deliberately cherry picked your countries but you couldn't have done much better had you tried.