Thomas Mott Osborne: “Mr. Speaker, 4,000 young people die per year from suicide, and I guess what we are being told here is we do not know of…”

“Mr. Speaker, 4,000 young people die per year from suicide, and I guess what we are being told here is we do not know of anything that will work, and this bill really may make things worse, and we may actually cause some people to take their lives. I would just like to mention what the bill is all about. Part 1 provides grant funding to States for development of a youth suicide prevention and intervention strategy. That does not necessarily mean that you go in and show films to kids of other kids killing themselves. It does not mean that you go out and hire a bunch of counselors to go into schools and tell kids do not kill yourselves. It may mean that you work with coaches and teachers to identify the signs, because there are very, very few suicides which occur where there are not some indications. It may be a term paper, a theme, it may be a comment in the locker room. So we can build awareness with those people who work with young people, and that is important. Some young people do not know that steroids are a leading cause of suicide. This is an education issue. Steroid precursors can be bought over the counter and cause untold number of suicides each year. People are not aware of that.”