Am J Psychiatry 1994; 151:1813-1814
Copyright © 1994 by American Psychiatric Association
Increase in fatal suicidal poisonings and suffocations in the year Final Exit was published: a national study
PM Marzuk, K Tardiff and AC Leon
Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York, NY 10021.
Final Exit was a best-selling book that recommended poisoning and
suffocation by plastic bag as lethal means of suicide for those with
terminal medical illnesses. The authors sought to determine whether the
number of suicides involving these methods increased in the United States
in 1991, the year the book was published, compared with 1990. Suicidal
asphyxiations involving a plastic bag increased 30.8%, from 334 to 437, and
poisonings increased 5.4%, from 3,143 to 3,314. There was no change in the
number of suicides involving each of the other methods or in the total
number of suicides between 1990 and 1991. These ecological data support,
but cannot conclusively prove, the hypothesis that Final Exit influenced
the choice of lethal means of suicidal individuals.
